By Graham Healy
Despite their efforts of yesterday, Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche were again to the fore on the last mountainous stage of the Tour de France, finishing 10th and 12th place respectively on stage 17 in the Pyrenees today, Thursday.
The riders faced five categorised climbs over 143 kilometres, finishing with the summit ascent to Peyragudes.
There were fireworks from the start today and Martin was among the breakaway that went clear on the climb of the Col du Mente after just 17 kilometres. However, Team Sky were very vigilant and didn’t give them the same freedom as yesterday.
Another break then went clear which contained neither Irishman, but this group weren’t given much leeway either. The efforts of Liquigas at the front whittled the bunch down to about 35 riders as they started the final climb, with that group overhauling most of the breakaway.
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Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) remained clear from that escape and would hang on for the win.
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Behind in the yellow jersey group - as other GC riders slipped back on the climb of the Col de Peyragudes - both Roche and Martin initially hung in very well.
However, this group exploded with 7 kilometres to go. Roche went out the back first, followed not long afterwards by Martin.
Chris Froome (Sky) demonstrated that he has been the strongest climber on this year’s race; sacrificing his own chances of a stage win by again waiting for his team leader and GC leader Bradley Wiggins.
Roche remains in 11th place overall, but due to Thibaut Pinot (FDJ – Big Mat) finishing with Wiggins and Froome, he is now over a minute behind the Frenchman and will need to overcome this deficit to climb into the top 10.
He will be confident that he can do that as he beat Pinot by over two minutes in the Tour’s first time trial. However, Roche also lost time to Kloden in the same test and the German now lies just over a minute behind the Irishman on GC after gaining time on him today. Martin has now climbed to 36th place overall.
Tomorrow’s stage won’t offer many chances for changes to the GC, with Saturday’s stage giving Roche his last opportunity to move into the top 10.
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