After a great start to 2015, with queen stage wins Down Under and at the Volta ao Algarve, plus his national time trial, Australian Richie Porte is looking forward to Paris-Nice, which starts tomorrow.

“Everything’s going really well. I’m healthy and I’m in a good routine training back in Europe,” he told TeamSky.com. “The weather’s been good, we’ve got a great team and everyone is motivated by the results we’ve been getting.”

“I’m really looking forward to getting into Paris-Nice. It’s a race where I’ve got happy memories from two years ago.”

Two years ago, Porte dominated the race and took a dominating win in the race to the Sun, adding two stage wins to the GC triumph.

Sky has a strong squad at the race, with Bradley Wiggins looking to win tomorrow’s prologue and Geraint Thomas, who almost won the race last year along but crashed hard on the penultimate stage and had to leave the race. He took the GC win in Algrave and won a stage too, meaning Sky has two genuine contenders in great shape for the win.

“Obviously G is coming off an awesome win in Algarve. He and I have a target in the general classification and we’re both really motivated. But we’ve got such a strong squad. Nicolas Roche is a great road captain. We’ve got Luke Rowe, Swifty (Ben Swift), Lars Petter (Nordhaug) and then Bernie (Eisel) who brings real experience. Then we’ve got Brad. Obviously it’s a big opportunity for Brad wearing the world champs jersey.”

30-year-old Porte is taking confidence from the face that the course is very similar to that on which he won the race in 2013.

“If I look at it it’s much the same parcours as 2013 when I won it,” he added. “I know there are some really hard days towards the finale, but it’s Paris-Nice and you don’t want to be caught napping in those first few days either. You have to expect the unexpected. But with the experience and the horsepower that we have I think a lot of guys will be looking at our team. We’ve got different cards that we can play for every situation.”

While he mentioned that Wiggins has motivation for the TT as he is wearing his Worlds TT jersey, Porte also has his Australian TT jersey on, and he will look to do it justice in both the prologue and the final stage time trial up the Col d’Eze, which he won in 2013.

I’ve got my Aussie national champs TT bike now,” he beamed. “A little thing like that gives you huge motivation. Looking down and seeing the green and yellow is pretty cool.”