Dan Martin has said he was happy with his ride on today's stage 6 of La Vuelta, adding it was a busy stage with lots going on and a day when any number of things could have gone wrong.
“When I saw the weather it made me more focused as it makes the stage even more tricky,” Dan Martin explained of what was a very hard stage in cold and wet conditions towards the pointy end.
“With the down hills and the cold it adds more
possibilities to make mistakes and lose time. So I’m really happy to get
through with another good performance.
“I felt good on the last climb but the higher we climbed,
the colder I got and my body just stopped working. It was a case of just riding
as hard as I could to the line.
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“Carapaz and Carthy were really good and obviously coped
with the conditions better than me. But I have had bad days in the cold before
so this shows how good my condition is.
“It’s been an incredibly tough week of aggressive racing
so we are really content with our position going into the rest day.
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“The guys again gave their all for me and I was well supported until right into the final km. We will enjoy the rest day but still just thinking day by day and staying focused.”
While Dan Martin lost time to some of his general classification rivals, he gained on Primoz Roglic, but perhaps stayed with the Jumbo Visma rider too long on the final climb, though clearly he said the cold got to him.
Rider after rider attacked the GC group, which was over a minute
behind the breakaway that won the day, and Martin (Israel Start Up
Nation) remained with Roglic in a small group as the attackers went up
the road.
Hugh Carthy (EF Pro Cycling), Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers),
Marc Soler (Movistar) and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) were among the men
who attacked inside the closing kilometres of the final climb to the
summit at Aramón Formigal after 146km of racing.
And though Martin eventually joined them by jumping clear of Roglic
with 1km to go, making up ground when he finally went, he left it too
late; putting 15 seconds into Roglic but losing 35 seconds on Carthy and
28 seconds to Soler and Carapaz, the new race leader.
Martin is now 3rd overall, one place lower than he started today, and
is 20 seconds down on Carapaz and just two seconds off Carthy.
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