After bidding farewell to racing in Australia at the end of January, Richie Porte (Ineos Grenadiers) will now head to Europe with the goal of winning this season.

Porte has often started the year with an early season World Tour victory at the Tour Down Under in Australia, but the COVID-19 pandemic has canceled this international race for the season.

Still, the Tasmanians started the year of racing by coaching their young national team riders at the Santos Festival of Cycling, an alternative domestic event. It may have been a fitting event to bid farewell to racing in South Australia, but Porte is now heading into his final season racing in Europe.

Porte hopes to change this situation soon.

"I'm going back to Tirreno-Adriatico, which I've barely ridden. After the Santos Festival Cycling," Porte said, "I've only run it once, and that was in the Tirreno-Adriatico.

The 37-year-old Porte has won at least one World Tour stage or overall every year since 2013, including the Tour de Suisse, Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, Tour de Romandie, Criterium du Dauphiné, Paris-Nice, and two Tour Down Under He has won at least one World Tour stage or overall victory every year. However, Tirreno-Adriatico is a week-long stage race and has never been completed, let alone won.

In 2014, he was forced to retire on stage 4 due to illness, and he was scheduled to compete in this seven-stage race again in 2018, but suffered an upper respiratory infection.Starting on March 7 with an ITT of 13.9 km and including 14,000 m of climbing during the 1131 km race The race is one of his goals for his last year of unfinished business.

As far as the rest of the calendar is concerned, Porte will not compete in the Tour de France, where he finished third overall in 2020, but will concentrate on the Giro d'Italia. The Giro d'Italia is the race where his GC potential was evident in 2010.

However, his focus this year will not be limited to Tirreno-Adriatico and the Giro, as he has a clear goal of finishing his 13 years of World Tour racing on a high note.

"My goal is to win at least one bike race this year," Porte said.

He will accomplish that in seven months of racing. As of now, he plans to finish in September in his home race for his team, Ineos Grenadier.

"As of now, my last bike race will be the Tour of Britain," Porte said.