Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) has taken his best result of the Tour de France so far, with 8th place after a breakaway ride on stage 15 into Andorra.
Martin, who was riding on home roads today as he has lived in Andorra for years, went in the early breakaway. It was soon joined by a group of over 20 riders, making for a mini peloton of over 30 men in the front group.
While the Irish climber looked strong during the stage, he seemed to ride very hard in the early part of the race, when he first got clear in the smaller lead group. And he appeared to pay the price for those efforts later in the day.
On the final climb of the day, the Col de Beixalis, Sepp Kuss (Jumbo Visma) proved by far the strongest rider in the front group. An attack by Kuss, after some moves before he went, split the lead group to pieces.
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American rider Kuss went over the top of that climb alone, chased by Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) before descending down into the finish in Andorra la Vella to win the day after 191.3km of racing.
Dan Martin dug deep on that final climb but he didn't have the legs to match the strongest men. And he had to be content with 8th place on the stage, in a group some 1:22 down on the winner.
Kuss won the day by 23 seconds from Valverde, with Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) placing 3rd at 1:15. Poels took the sprint for the final spot on the podium from Ion Izagirre (Astana Premier Tech), Ruben Guerreiro (EF Education Nippo), Nairo Quintana (Arkea Samsic) and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ).
Dan Martin led home the next group on the road, which numbered five riders; the Irish climber winning the sprint for 8th place. A total of 18 riders from the breakaway made it to the finish ahead of the small yellow jersey group.
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That group featured the men fighting for the podium places, some of whom attacked each other and race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates). However, while Pogačar was isolated, with no team mates, on the final climb he looked to have the attacks of his rivals under control.
Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) put in the best effort; going early on the climb after his team had driven hard on the front of the group as it reduced from a peloton to a small select group in the final 50km.
As well as Carapaz attacking, Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), Rigoberto Urán (EF Education-Nippo) and Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën) all made efforts to attack the group, though those moves came to nothing.
In the end, the yellow jersey group was reduced to just eight riders and contained all of those competing for the podium expect for Guillaume Martin. The Cofidis rider had jumped up to 2nd overall yesterday after making the breakaway but lost out today; losing time and slipping from 2nd to 7th overall.
Going into tomorrow's rest day, Pogačar still has yellow and he now leads by 5:18 from Uran. Vingegaard is 3rd at 5:32, Carapaz 4th at 5:33, O'Connor 5th at 5:58 and Wilco Kelderman (Bora-hansgrohe) in 6th place at 6:16.
While Dan Martin was left empty handed today, he is now looking stronger and with plenty of climbing to come in the last week of the race the Irishman still has a great chance of taking a stage win.
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