Brad McGee knows a thing or two about racing Grand Tours.

After an extraordinary start as a junior track rider, he went on to forge an incredible array of results on the track as a senior, including World Titles in the 4000 metre individual pursuit, Team Pursuit Olympic Gold in Athens, and too many national and Commonwealth titles to name.

His experience for garnering great speed over four-to-five minutes made him a fabulous talent in the notoriously fast opening prologues of tours, and at 23 years old, he signed with French team, Française des Jeux, to begin an illustrious road career.

In 2003, he surprised many hitters when he won the prologue of the Tour de France and held the leader's maillot jaune for 3 days.

In his first Giro d'Italia in 2004, he wore the maglia rosa for 3 stages after again winning the prologue, and finished an extraordinary 8th overall, 3 weeks later.

In 2005, he was the first Australian to wear the jersey oro in the Vuelta d'Espana and thereby achieved the feat of being the first Australian to have worn leaders' jerseys in all three grand tours.

Now, retired from riding but still in the thick of racing, he works as Director of Team Saxo Bank, and is partly responsible for the cycling world knowing about the young lad from Tasmania, Richie Porte.

As a triathlete, Porte could run a flat 10km in under 30 minutes. Very handy indeed.

He also broke Cadel Evans' hill climb record up Mt Wellington in Hobart. Very, very handy.

2009 was his first season racing in an amateur team in Italy. He won the time trial stage of what is affectionately known as the ‘Baby Giro' (probably less difficult than the ‘Giro for Grown Ups' but no fewer crazy narrow roads, steep climbs and balloons to release at the start line).

When he was given an opportunity to ride for the world class team, Saxo Bank this year, thousands of Aussie cycling fans still had never heard of him.

Then, in the stage one time trial of his first Grand Tour, he finished sixth behind the tallest, skinniest ginge in the peloton (and world class pursuiter), Bradley Wiggins.

It gave him the maglia bianca for the best young rider, and he wore that honour for the next 20 stages, all the way to Verona.

Oh, except for the part when he upgraded his jersey to the maglia rosa on stage 11.

Porte and dozens of others were in a break on that day into l'Aquila, a town still rebuilding after a devastating earthquake last year. It took the big teams by surprise, blew the general classification apart, and removed any anonymity he had in the pro peloton.

We saw his young face pulling on the jersey each day and his relentless efforts on every mountain as he tried to keep the pink kit on for as long as possible. Revealing only later, that he been physically unwell on a couple of the truly awful days of climbing, but that had been kept secret from his competitors.

Never let ‘em see you hurt.

When the Spaniard, Davide Arroyo finally took the jersey on stage 14, it wasn't as though the jig was up. Porte remained at the pointy end of GC for the remainder of the Giro.

He out-climbed tour winners, and out-time trialled chrono specialists, continuing to ride with composure, professionalism and great support from his Saxo Bank teammates.

At the final podium presentation in the beautiful colosseum in Verona, Porte put on his white jersey and his big smile. He had over seven minutes advantage on the next best young'un and had finished 7th overall, one place better than his esteemed mentor, Brad McGee.

He stood proudly with Cadel Evans (fifth overall) in the points jersey and Matty Lloyd in the climber's jersey, and a very satisfied Giro winner, Ivan Basso.

With three Aussies in secondary jerseys, I'm sure the Melbourne 2010 World Road Championships organising committee just amped up their excitement a notch or two.