Dan Martin took the fight to the world’s best in a bid for stage and overall honours, showing he’s ready for the days ahead and the classics.
By Brian Canty
Ireland’s Dan Martin has moved up to sixth overall at the Volta A Catalunya after an excellent third place on day three of the race today.
The Cannondale-Garmin rider was in a group of six sprinting for second place after Ag2r La Mondiale’s Domenico Pozzovivo broke clear with around two kilometres remaining.
The diminutive Italian just about held off a fast-finishing Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-Quick Step) with Martin right behind him.
Martin, who won the race back in 2013, will perhaps be a little bit disappointed not to have taken the stage into his adopted city of Girona.
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The front group featured his teammate Andrew Talansky and they outnumbered the others present.
They were the aforementioned Talansky, Uran and Pozzovivo as well as Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), Fabio Aru (Astana) and Richie Porte (Team Sky).
Pozzovivo timed his attack just as the front seven were beginning to look at each other and in very much the same way as Martin won the Tour of Lombardy last October, the Ag2r La Mondiale man proved victorious today.
Today was the first time this season that Dan Martin showed his teeth, and he looked very impressive.
The fast, downhill section to the finish played right into his hands and he had enough time to celebrate a very fine win; also taking a 10-second time bonus.
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Martin picked up a precious four seconds for third place and he now trails race leader Pierre Rolland by 2:22.
The only other Irishman in the race, Nicolas Roche (Team Sky) was very much on domestique duties this afternoon and he lost over eight minutes on the winner.
He crossed the line in 89th place in a large group and is now 64th overall at 11:02.
Tomorrow’s stage takes the riders 188 kilometres from Tona to the ski station at La Molina in Andorra and there are three huge climbs before they tackle that.
The climb to the finish is around 12 kilometres long and averages 4.8 percent, so the general classification could well remain very tight heading into the final stages.
The remaining stages feature some very lumpy stuff so Martin will believe he has every chance of fighting for the jersey.
Stage 3, Volta A Catalunya
Girona-Girona, 156km
1 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 3:52:37
2 Rigoberto Uran (Col) Etixx - Quick-Step 0:00:03
3 Daniel Martin (Irl) Cannondale-Garmin
4 Alberto Contador (Spa) Tinkoff-Saxo
5 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana
6 Richie Porte (Aus) Team Sky
7 Andrew Talansky (USA) Cannondale-Garmin
8 Diego Rosa (Ita) Astana 0:00:22
9 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo
10 Alberto Losada Alguacil (Spa) Katusha
64 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky 0:08:40
General Classification
1 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Europcar 13:29:23
2 Maciej Paterski (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice 0:01:08
3 Bart De Clercq (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:01:16
4 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 0:02:14
5 Rigoberto Uran (Col) Etixx - Quick-Step 0:02:21
6 Daniel Martin (Irl) Cannondale-Garmin 0:02:22
7 Alberto Contador (Spa) Tinkoff-Saxo 0:02:27
8 Richie Porte (Aus) Team Sky
9 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana
10 Andrew Talansky (USA) Cannondale-Garmin
64 Nicolas Roche (IRL) Team Sky @11:02
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