While Team Sky have been so strong, Dan Martin is not overawed and has had the legs to attack.
Dan Martin says Team Sky not unbeatable at Tour
Dan Martin has said while he didn’t plan to dig as deep as he did on yesterday’s stage 11 at the Tour de France he grabbed the opportunity when it presented.
The Irish rider was distanced with Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) attacked with just over 5km remaining to the summit finish line.
He hunted down the handful of riders ahead, going through them to win and take the race leader.
Martin clawed his way back to the favourites group after being dropped. And then he immediately attacked them.
Chris Froome (Team Sky) went with them and they weren’t seen against by the other favourites.
In the end Martin was 6th some 27 seconds behind Thomas. But he was 32 seconds ahead of Romain Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Primoz Roglic (LottoNL Jumbo).
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And so he has jumped to 10th overall; on the same time as 9th placed Quintana at 3:16.
Dan Martin said when he got back on after initially being dropped, he sensed a stall and just went for it.
And with 4km to go, he felt the others would ride tactically and not commit. And that meant a chance for him to gain time.
While he has moved up the standings, he said that after his stage 7 crash he wasn’t thinking of time. Instead, his was a day by day approach and he said anyone could have a bad day and lose lots of time.
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“I thought some of the guys would wait for tomorrow but the speed of the race all day was fast. There are going to be some tired bodies tomorrow,” he said after yesterday’s effort.
With two days now done in the Alps and Alp d’Huez on Thursday, Martin said he has really enjoyed the climbing so far.
“After the crash I hadn’t really been thinking about the GC," he said of his stage 8 incident.
"I’ve just been doing my best every day. And we’ll just have to wait and see the results at the end of the Tour.
"Any day a rider can have a bad day and lose time. If I hadn’t crashed I’d be in a really nice position today, maybe fourth.
"Overall, I’m loving the mountains. The last two days have been great. This is the race you think about all year – these mountains and these crowds. There’s just no feeling like it.”
And while Thomas and Froome were 1st and 3rd yesterday and now fill the top two positions overall, Martin believes they can be beaten.
“The speed is so high that everyone is on the limit. Even Chris and Geraint are on the limit,” he said.
“That's why when Geraint went, everyone went; wow. It was an incredibly hard day.
“I'm happy with my feelings and hopefully, I'll have good legs tomorrow. I think Chris was just taking advantage of the race.
“Everyone had a go today. It was a really open race. Movistar tried to break it up and then Dumoulin had a go as well.
“And (Team Sky) are not unbeatable. They're incredibly strong at the moment. But everyone has a bad day at some point.
“This Tour is going to be about who has the least-bad bad days. If I haven’t had the crash I would be a lot better off by now; I'd be fourth.”
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