Dan Martin: "I felt good but there'll be no hiding on the Angliru"

Dan Martin looks back to his best and any notion his powers had faded has already been dismissed 11 stages into this Grand Tour. There is still a lot of racing to be done and plenty of mountains to climb, but the 35-year-old Irishman now has a golden chance at making a Grand Tour podium, in whatever position

Dan Martin staged a late smash and grab on La Vuelta stage 11 yesterday when he sprinted from the favourites' group for the finish line, being marked by his main rivals but taking another 7 seconds out of Hugh Carthy.

Those time losses for Carthy, now 4th in the general standings, have mounted up over the past week, though he still remains only 33 seconds off Martin in 3rd overall.

With a week of racing still to come, Dan Martin could challenge Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) and Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers), with are 1st and 2nd overall.

However, riders currently a little further down are by no means out of the contest for the final podium.

There is a long way to go on La Vuelta 2020 and Dan Martin is not counting his chickens yet. But the Irish rider's form and, so far, his consistency on this race are back where they were before he joined UAE Team Emirates for what became an indifferent two years. He faces a big test today but everything appears to be going to plan for him

“It was really a hard day today. Every climb was ridden at a fast pace, but I felt good from the start,” Dan Martin said of yesterday’s stage.

“The
headwind on the last climb meant it wasn’t too hard in the wheels and negated
any attacks.

“But in the last kilometer, I saw it was a tailwind and I
felt good, so I wanted to make a sprint – not to be surprised by an attack.”

However, he then immediately pointed ahead to today’s stage, saying; “There is no hiding on the Angliru.”

The climbing today starts just 24km into the stage with the
first of a brace of modest cat 3 ascents, followed by the 6.4km cat 1 Alto de
la Mozqueta (8.2 per cent) which is crested after 60km.

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Then the finale effectively gets underway some 85.5km
into the stage when the riders hit the base of the cat 1 Alto del Cordal, which
kicks up for 5.5km at an average gradient of 8.8 per cent.

From the top of that climb the field will descend for 8km
and at that point, with just over 20km to go, it’s effectively uphill all the
way to the line.

There’s a first climb of 4.9km, at 7.4 per cent before
the road levels off briefly and then the Alto de l'Angliru begins.

It’s a 13km climb up to the finish line, with an average
of 9.8 per cent but with the tenth kilometre at 17 per cent.

Before his win on stage 3 of this race, the last time Dan
Martin had secured a win was in the 2018 Tour de France, up the Mur de
Bretagne.

Later in that race the field faced a short and sharp stage, not dissimilar to today’s Vuelta stage, which took in 65km from Bagnères-de-Luchon to the summit of Col Du Portet.

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) took off on his own that day to take a brilliant win but just behind him was Dan Martin; on his own for much of the final climb in pursuit of Quintana after the Colombian had dropped him.

Martin ended the day in 2nd place, 28 seconds down on Quintana, and 19 seconds up on eventual Tour winner Geraint Thomas, with Primoz Roglic a further few seconds back.

A repeat of that performance today could put Martin into the race leader’s jersey, though the stage is as much as a banana skin as it is an opportunity and Martin will need to be vigilant.