Dan Martin’s fourth place overall in the Volta a Catalunya has moved the Irishman into the UCI world rankings for the first time this season, taking him to 21st place in the just-published new standings.
While that fourth overall in the WorldTour stage race earned Martin 60 UCI world ranking points and put him into the top tier of the world rankings, he has still not done enough to earn a place on the Irish Olympic team, a situation he seems frustrated with.
Cycling Ireland has set out criteria for Olympic selection which dictates that only those riders with UCI ranking points will be eligible to be picked. It means Martin has now at least satisfied that criterion.
However, the federation has decided to award its own points to riders who place in UCI ranked races, with the selection for London to be based on the tallies of the Irish riders based on Cycling Ireland’s points system.
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It has decided to award those points only for stage wins or stage placings in stage races, with no points awarded for the final GC.
It means despite his ride last week, on the basis of Cycling Ireland’s Olympic selection criteria Martin has still has not scored any points towards securing Olympic selection even though he is at least now eligible for selection.
Martin pointed out on twitter today, Monday, that under the Cycling Ireland Olympic selection criteria, more points are awarded for a stage win in the An Post Ras than for fourth place in a race like Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
Martin suggested that this situation was "a joke”.
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The selection criteria are ripe for one of the An Post-Sean Kelly riders, or some of the Irish riders with UK Continental teams, to have a great An Post Ras and get to the Olympics on the basis of it.
For example, two stage wins in the Ras would put a rider in an excellent position to be picked, unless the bigger names like Brammeier, Roche, Deignan, McCann and Martin collect placings or wins in one day races or on stages in stage races.
It seems inconceivable that Martin will not score a lot more points – both in the UCI rankings and under Cycling Ireland’s own points system – and easily secure his place for London.
However, Nicolas Roche’s opening months of the season have been difficult enough as he has struggled for form and then fallen ill. Philip Deignan rode well in Italy last week but has not results yet and Matt Brammeier, while riding very well, has been tied up with team duties. David McCann has yet to sparkle and like the others has no UCI points yet; though he may be the man to score those on the Asian circuit or indeed in the An Post Ras.
While Martin was fourth overall in Catalunya he was effectively robbed of his best chance of taking overall victory when the queen stage was shortened due to snow. It meant the two hors category climbs towards the end of the stage route did not feature.
The race was due to finish at the top of the second of those mountains, which appeared the perfect stage for Martin to put real shape on the top of the GC.
Instead, he spent the rest of the week on equal time with a whole clutch of riders well over one minute down on leader and eventual winner Michael Albasini (GreenEdge). This led to a scramble for minor placings on every stage among those equal second on time as they hunted for points to climb the GC in the absence of any time splits.
It was a frustrating week for Martin in what many people believed would be his first GC win there after previous podium finishes. A crash on the shortened stage left him with a back strain that caused him to struggle a little in the hills the following day when he would have been expected to again try and take the GC lead.
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