Dan Martin finished like a rocket but Team Sky’s 21-year-old Colombian star Egan Bernal, above, was the star of the show in the Tour de Romandie mountain TT.
After a muted season to date, not helped by mishap and bad luck, Dan Martin has ridden well at the Tour of Romandie hilly TT.
The Irishman took 8th place in the 9.9km climbing test at Villars. Furthermore, he has jumped from 21st to 8th overall with two days remaining.
But there was no doubting the star of the show today; Egan Bernal.
The 21-year-old Team Sky star Colombian claimed the stage win. Bernal posted a time of 25:10, some four seconds faster than race leader Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo).
Last year’s race winner Richie Porte of BMC showed his condition is really coming around with 3rd place. He was 18 seconds off Bernal.
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Dan Martin lost 1:28 on the day. That was still good enough for eight as the top three were well ahead of the rest.
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Between Porte and 4th placed Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) was a gap of 30 seconds.
Then came Martin’s UAE team Emirates team mate Rui Costa; another 18 second down.
After that Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale) was 1:21 off the stage winner, followed by Rohan Dennis (BMC) at 1:26 and then Dan Martin.
While Bernal’s ride was a scorching one, Roglic held him to four seconds. And that was enough to keep the race lead.
He is still in yellow, just six seconds clear of Bernal and 27 seconds ahead of Porte. Dan Martin has 1:42 to make up on Roglic.
However, while that very likely prove too much for the Irishman, today’s result is a strong indication his form is getting better.
He finished his effort very strongly today and was stage leader for a while.
Tomorrow’s penultimate stage is 149km starting and finish in Sion. However, there are five mountains including two cat 1 ascents.
The second of those cat 1 climbs is the final climb of the day, peaking out some 27km, of mainly descending, from the finish.
Sunday’s final stage is 182km from Mont-sur-Rolle to Genève. And while there are three third category climbs in the first half of the stage the parcours is undulating rather than mountainous.
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