Ireland's Dan Martin says he is hoping to be in the thick of the action tomorrow at the Vuelta. But it was Valverde, in green, who won stage 8 today from Sagan.
Dan Martin now hoping to "have a go" at Vuelta
Dan Martin has said he is ready to “have a go” on Sunday’s stage 9 at the Vuelta; on a mountain where he won the last time the race visited in 2011.
Back then Martin raced to the summit finish of La Covatilla, the winner at the end of 179.5km.
He beat Bauke Mollema in a two-up sprint. Eventual race winner Juan José Cobo was 3rd at three seconds.
And then a couple of seconds back came the Team Sky duo of Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome; the latter in the middle of his breakthrough career ride.
Tomorrow the race goes back up the same mountain to finish and is again featured on the ninth day of racing.
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Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) has lost time through the first eight days. And while he said he has not fully come around after the Tour de France, he is ready for action.
He was also very critical of some of the roads chosen for the finales of recent stages, saying yesterday’s run in was chaos.
Furthermore, there were late climbs on the course that did not feature in the profile map of the stage.
He was trying to aid team sprinter Simone Consonni to see if he could contest the final dash to the line. However, an unexpected climb ended those plans.
"We’ve been riding on these beautiful roads all day and then the last 15 kilometres is just chaos," he said, adding it was good for TV but not for the riders.
"I just hope the guys who were affected by the crashes are OK and the mechanicals didn’t affect the race too much.
"It would have been nice if they’d swept the road. It was a really, really bad road surface; the number of mechanicals and problems you saw, (and) crashes."
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Turning his thoughts to the challenge ahead, he was cautious but said he was willing.
"I’ve got heavy legs at the moment. I’m not fully ‘back’ from the Tour yet, so it’s hard work," he explained.
“And I’m trying to do a good job for Fabio; hopefully in a psychological way as well as in the race,” added of team general classification man Fabio Aru.
"The team are riding really well here around Fabio. We are a young team and we’ve had a lot of different programs.
"Hopefully we can continue like that... and we can have a go," he said of tomorrow's stage before the rest day.
He added Aru had already been asking him about tomorrow’s climb given his experience of taking victory there.
“Last time was a big moment as it was my first Grand Tour stage victory. It’s a great road although it’s very hot and there will be a lot of wind,” he said.
“It was very windy in 2011. Sky had set a really hard tempo and they caught me with 2 or 3km to go.
“But I managed to hold on and win the sprint. That last 2kms is a bit easier. So there’s a chance of a group sprint again.”
On today’s stage 8 Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) took the win into Almadén after 195.1km.
In an unusual sprint after another hard finale that whittled down the peloton again, the Spanish veteran beat Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) to the line.
The peloton was down to just 50 men, with Nicolas Roche (BMC Racing) in there; in 39th place.
Martin was further back, but only just off the back of the front pack; finishing in 65th at 32 seconds.
Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ) retained the race lead, though Valverde has taken 10 seconds back.
He is now just 37 seconds down, in 2nd place, and will be a favourite again tomorrow; to take the stage and race lead.
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