Having climbed in the first group of five on the summit finish, Dan Martin said training could never mimic the effects of racing so hard. He also believed the team rode with authority.
Dan Martin said he took an overzealous approach to the early slopes of yesterday’s finishing climb at the Volta ao Algarve.
He won the stage, on the same Fóia-Monchique summit finish, last year and took the race lead. And while he had to settle for 4th yesterday, he finished in the first group, of five, on the road.
The Team Sky pairing of Michal Kwiatkowski and Geraint Thomas were 1st and 3rd respectively.
Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) was sandwiched between them. Then Martin was next and Jaime Roson (Movistar) 5th.
There followed a gap of three seconds to six more riders. They included Bob Jungels (QuickStep) and Richie Porte (BMC Racing).
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As a result, the battle for yellow – held now by Thomas – is tight ahead of today’s 20.3km TT, which is mainly flat but with some short ramps.
It is a stage Ireland's Ryan Mullen (Trek-Segafredo) can hopefully challenge for.
Furthermore, for the general classification men there is another summit finish on Sunday. A 3km cat 2 ascent at the very end is likely to see fireworks.
Yesterday’s finale was played out on a 15km climb to the finish. And when Vasil Kiryienka (Team Sky) attacked early, Dan Martin went after him.
They were joined by Primoz Roglic (LottoNl-Jumbo) and Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin).
But Kiryienka attacked again; determined to keep the pressure on for his team mates in the rapidly thinning peloton just behind.
Dan Martin and the others were reabsorbed by the select group. It continued to thin all the way to the top before fragmenting further in the last kick for the line.
The Irish cyclist suggested he perhaps paid for his efforts so early on the ascent. Moreover, he said the climb was windy, which made being out front very hard.
“It’s always a strange one because there’s so much wind,” he said of the finishing climb.
“And on the wheel in the group it’s a lot easier than it is out front. Maybe I got a bit carried away at the bottom of the climb.
“I saw Kiryienka go and I knew there wasn’t any (of my) team mates left. So if you’ve got a gap, if the group went away; you’d be hard to catch.
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“Then he attacked us. If we’d stayed as a group of four we probably would have gone a lot (closer) to the finish. But with the wind, and the nature of the climb; I didn’t really ride hard.
“I just decided to wait for the group and wait for the sprint,” said, before laughing: “The sprinting legs aren’t there quite yet.”
Dan Martin has transferred to UAE Team Emirates this year for support, especially at the Tour de France. The squad were on the front yesterday, above, bringing back the breakaway for its Irish leader.
Asked how he felt in what is his first race of the year, and if the contest was just a gauge of where his form was at, Dan Martin disagreed.
“It’s not really about seeing where your form is. It’s about getting that race speed. You can’t train that. You can’t ride at 60k an hour on your own.
“The feeling in the peloton…. I mean, yesterday the first 50km; it’s training all the senses, all the natural reactions. It’s training everything to move towards the next big races in March.”
Martin added the next mountain stage, when the race finishes on Sunday, posed another challenge he needed at this time of year.
“That’s why it’s such a great race; the two (stage finish) climbs are very different. And we’ve a nice time trial to test us as well. It’s definitely a really good race to get the legs going.”
Dan Martin praises team work
Furthermore, Dan Martin said while he had hoped for victory, he felt the team had ridden very well.
“I always like to race to win, unfortunately the victory just slipped away," he said after the finish.
"The important thing, though is that the team raced well, with authority, with everyone moving with precision and with the right timing.
"We knew that we had an opportunity to play for the win. And we created the right conditions to try to hit the big target.
"In the final, I waited for the sprint. It was important to go into the final curve first and I was beside Kwiatkowski.
"But I wasn’t able to move to the right and in that moment. I knew that I would not be able to pass him."
- Many thanks to Cian Lynch for his assistance with this piece; much appreciated.
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