Video: Fantastic highlights of Dan Martin's historic Tour de France stage victory in the Pyrenees

Highlights Tour de France stage 9: Saint-Girons to Bagnères-de-Bigorre 168.5km

Well, we've been waiting a long time to see this folks; a stage win by an Irish rider at the Tour de France. But today Dan Martin - the son of Olympian and former pro Neil Martin and Maria Martin - grabbed the biggest race in the world by the scruff of the neck and subdued it to take a great win.

There were fireworks the whole way as those who lost time to leader Chris Froome (Team Sky) on yesterday's first mountainous stage tried to isolate and then shake him off on the 168.5km from Saint-Girons to Bagnères-de-Bigorre.

To his credit, the Briton coped very well but when Martin attacked up the last of the day's five climbs - the cat 1 La Hourquette d'Ancizan - he moved away decisively and, perhaps aside from Froome, he looked the strongest in the race today.

Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) was the only one able to go with Martin. But the Dane found out the hard way at the finish that Martin has a very good kick on a sprint and was well beaten to the stage win by the Garmin-Sharp rider.

Martin has already had a fantastic season, winning Volta a Catalunya overall and a stage there, and also taking his biggest win to date at Liège-Bastogne-Liège back in April.

He is now 8th overall at the Tour after today's ride on stage 9, just 2:28 own on Froome and only 1:03 off Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) in second place; leaving him very well placed for a serious tilt at a podium place and of course further stage wins with plenty of climbing still to come.

Nicolas Roche is also having a good Tour and looked very strong as he worked for team leader Alberto Contador, lining depleted peloton out a number of times - see below - as he closed gaps for the Spaniard.