Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to warmly congratulate an outstanding athlete from my electorate of Bass, Richie Porte. Over the weekend, Richie, who lives at Hadspen, won the Paris-Nice cycle race tour, by 21 seconds. The week-long, 1,174-kilometre tour was ridden in a range of conditions from heavy rain and snow, despite being commonly known as 'the race in the sun'. The win was the first win for an Australian in that event.

Porte's goal is to ride in the Tour de France and ride with Sky team mates Brad Wiggins and Chris Froome. Congratulations and praise come from around the world, with other cycling superstars tweeting their well wishes, Richie's parents Ian and Penny are great friends of mine and I remember years ago after a surf carnival going back to their shack at Scamander and they told me Richie was riding from Hadspen to Scamander to visit them. He was a very young man then and he certainly had a goal in mind.

This is such an outstanding achievement for this young Tasmanian. He is an inspiration to others and an example—like Ricky Ponting and Daniel Geale, other Tasmanians from Bass—that when you put your mind to something, you can achieve anything. Congratulations to Richie Porte.