Dan Martin did not have a fantastic day at the Tour de France stage TTT but it could have been worse. He still already has time to make up on most of his rivals
Dan Martin has said he went into the team time trial (TTT) at the Tour de France yesterday targeting a loss of less than one minute to Team Ineos.
While the British WorldTour team did not win the stage,
coming 2nd to Jumbo Visma, they have the two favourites in Geraint Thomas and
Egan Bernal.
With those assets it is no surprise that Martin spoke to
Team Ineos as the yardstick against which everybody would judge themselves.
Dan Martin’s UAE Team Emirates squad was 1:03 down on
Jumbo Visma at the finish in Brussels yesterday but a smaller margin, 43
seconds, off Team Ineos.
Advertisement
Related News
And the Irish rider said he was happy with that, adding
the team rode smoothly during the stage.
Everybody was gelling well and the good atmosphere in the
team felt relaxed; something the 32-year-old Irishman was hopeful would
continue.
He explained because the UAE Team Emirates riders at the
Tour had been on different programmes this season, there was no chance to do a
TTT in race conditions.
It meant his team was not as well drilled as some of the
others and he felt they got the best out of themselves yesterday.
“We just wanted to
stay conservative, didn’t want to take risks and I think we did that,” he said
of the 27.6km test.
“In my head I had less than a minute as a really good
ride. I think we lost 1-20 last year; it’s a slightly shorter course (this Tour).
“We’re happy to get around safe; we’re not going to be
too far behind the best times. So I think we showed a good improvement on last
year.”
On-board highlights stage 2 TTT
Topics
