Dan Martin has concluded his ride at Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana (2.Pro) with 4th overall; holding his place in the general classification when today's final stage came down to a bunch sprint.
The 97.7km stage from Paterna to Valencia went the way of Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) from Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) and John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo).
Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) finished in 46th place on the same time as the stage winner.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) who won stage 2 and stage 4 also finished in the bunch and won the race outright by six seconds from Jack Haig (Mitchelton Scott) and Tao Geoghegan Hart (Team Ineos).
Pogačar, who won Tour de l'Avenir in 2018 and moved up to the WorldTour just last year, claimed three stages of the Vuelta in that maiden season in the top flight and was also 3rd overall in what was his first Grand Tour.
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He also claimed the Amgen Tour of California overall and won the Volta ao Algarve in what was an amazing season for him.
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In winning his first race of the year this season and also claiming the two climbers' stages, he has continued where he left off and is shaping up as a contender for the Tour de France.
While Dan Martin did not land a place on the final podium this time around, he rode very well in Spain in recent days, especially on yesterday's hardest day with a 5km summit finish climb.
He looked the strongest of the four riders - along with Wout Poels (Bahrain-McLaren), Haig and Geoghegan Hart - who emerged as the next best behind Pogačar.
Martin arguably hasn't climbed as well since 2018; reflected in the fact he took it up yesterday from a long way out in the chase after Pogačar, having the confidence in himself to really go for it.
The race leader and eventual outright winner was simply too strong but on the basis of what we saw from Dan Martin - albeit on just two relatively short climbs - the season ahead may see him return to the top step on the podium sooner rather than later.
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