Cadel Evans and Richie Porte lost the opening battle, but are far from conceding this week’s Tour Down Under.

While the pair lost valuable seconds to fellow Australian cycling star Simon Gerrans on stage one, they separately pointed out there will be plenty of chances to claw back that time in the six-day race.

Evans (BMC) finished ninth and Porte (Sky) was 29th at Angaston in the Barossa, as Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE) won the stage and took the overall lead.

While Evans finished on the same time as Gerrans, time bonuses mean he is 11 seconds behind at ninth on the overall standings.

Porte finished four seconds back, meaning he is 15 seconds adrift at 29th overall.

The trio are the Tour favourites after Gerrans won a pulsating Australian championships road race on January 12.

Evans, the 2011 Tour de France champion, was second at the nationals and Porte, the only Australian to win Paris-Nice, took third for a world-class podium.

“I was there in the final but I was a bit disappointed – I would have liked to have been much closer to the bonus seconds in a finish like that,” Evans said.

“It’s not as good a start as I would have liked … but it’s the first day of what’s going to be a pretty intense week of racing I think.

Sky were impressive throughout the 135km stage, regularly riding at the front of the peloton.

Apart from Porte, they also have Geraint Thomas (Great Britain) and Philip Deignan (Ireland) as potential overall options.

“Obviously Simon is pretty motivated for it, he’s going for the intermediate sprints,” Porte said.

“It’s a bit of a shame to lose (15) seconds already, but it’s a long way.

“I was happy with how we were in the climb (near the finish), we were the first team into it.”

Porte also noted the strong performance of new Australian team-mate Nathan Earle, who was brought in as a late replacement when Chris Sutton suffered a wrist fracture during Sunday night’s curtain-raiser street race.