Dan Martin proud of ‘special’ Tour de France display

By Luke Maguire

Dan Martin came agonisingly close to his second victory in this year’s Tour de France as the Irishman put in a heroic display of strength to finish second to Colombian Nairo Quintana (Movistar) on the Col du Portet — the hardest finishing climb of this year’s race.

At just 65km in length, this was shortest road stage the race has seen since 1971.

What it lacked in distance it made up for in difficulty with two major mountain passes to contend with before finishing on the gruelling 16km Col du Portet.

Martin kicked out from the peloton with 14.8km to go, with only Quintana able to follow the move.

Having established a gap on the main bunch, Quintana immediately counter-attacked with Martin unable to follow.

2. @DanMartin86
3. @GeraintThomas86 #TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/fPctASkY7A

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 25, 2018

Martin, who had been targeting yesterday’s stage, made sure he had team-mates in the early breakaway to drop back to pace him after he made his attack.

“The last two or three days I’ve felt really good. I planned to go early, that’s why we had guys in the break.

“It’s okay to say you’re going to attack early but you get a lot of wind on these climbs. I had good legs and confidence in the legs that I could do a good climb,” said an exhausted Martin at the finish.

As has been the case on every mountain stage so far in this Tour, Team Sky were setting a high pace on the front — though this didn’t deter the Team UAE rider who attacked hard with eventual winner Quintana.

“Sky set a tempo early on on the climb and I’m seven minutes down, so I thought they’d let me go.

“Quintana came with me and I thought we’d ride together but he was strong and attacked me straight away. I wanted to go on my own tempo and turn it into a time trial but the altitude got me in the end, it’s pretty high up here!”

20th July 1999 a 12year old me watched @LeTour standing roadside on Val Louron-Azet. Very special to race over those same roads once more and even more so to race for the win. Fair play @NairoQuinCo Simply stronger today. Proud of how I raced. Love the Pyrenees

— Dan Martin (@DanMartin86) July 25, 2018

Martin noted that the pint-sized Colombian held a distinct advantage over him on the final ascent — Quintana hails from Cómbita, which is at over 2,800m in altitude.

“Quintana lives pretty high, so that’ll help him. I wanted to keep him at 10-15 seconds because I can usually close that gap in the final 400 metres but at this altitude I had nothing left.

“It was really tough and he was the better guy on the day.

“I’m proud of how the team rode and how I rode. It’s pretty special to be second on the hardest mountain top finish at the Tour de France.”

With this result, Martin climbs up to ninth in the GC and sits 6’33 behind the leader, Geraint Thomas (Team Sky).

Thomas managed to extend his lead in the overall classification with just four stages remaining and now holds a buffer of almost two minutes on his closest rival, Tom Domoulin (Sunweb).

The Welshman says that despite his lead, anything can still happen.

“I don’t let myself think about it, it’s honestly just day by day. It’s a sprint day tomorrow, so we just rest up now and get ready for that,” said Thomas.

“Obviously Dumoulin and Roglic were strong today and they were active. They’re the closest to me along with Froome, but I don’t classify him as a rival, we’re teammates.

“He’s a fighter, for sure he’ll keep fighting all the way. It’s good to keep the advantage for myself and the team is in a good position now.”

Chris Froome’s podium place may yet be in jeopardy as the reigning champion now holds onto his third place by a margin of just 16 seconds. Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo), who lies in fourth, is a noted time-trialist and will fancy his chances of moving up to the podium in the 31km individual time-trial on stage 20.

Stage 18 will come as a welcome break for the riders as it sees the riders take on a relatively flat 171km from Trie-sur-Baise to Pau.