Dan Martin is still making the headlines more than four years after retiring as the double Monument winner, and five-time Grand Tour stage winner, has just run a blistering personal best time in a 10km road race in Spain.
The former World Tour rider, with a best Grand Tour finish of 4th - at Vuelta 2020 - was a world class athlete on the bike. So it is perhaps no surprise he's able to switch that engine to running. But it's clear his time of 29:53 at the B100 Cursa dels Nassos in Barcelona on New Year’s Eve was very impressive.
But just how good is 39-year-old Martin's time in the context of top tier Irish athletics?
An analysis of the times from the Athletics Ireland 10km National Championships down the years reveals Martin could definitely compete for a medal. Indeed, based on these times by the best 10km runners in Ireland, Martin would have won a medal in some years had he posted the same time he ran in Barcelona a few days ago.
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Clockwise from top left | Martin winning 2014 Il Lombardia, winning stage 17 of the Giro in 2021, leading yellow jersey Chris Froome in the 2016 Tour de France and on the Alpe d'Huez stage of the 2015 Tour (Photos: Gian Mattia D'Alberto, Massimo Paolone, Radu Razvan, Sirotti)
But, for starters, what are the very fastest times by Irish athletes over 10km - road and track - and how does Martin's 29:53 compare?
The national record holder in the 10km event - on both the road and track - is Efrem Gidey. Twelve months ago he ran 27:43 in the 10km Valencia Ibercaja race, which was a new Irish record on the road. It beat the old record - set by John Treacy way back in 1985.
Gidey shaved just three seconds of Treacy's record, which stood for 40 years, underlining just how good Treacy was in his pomp; a silver medal winner in the marathon at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, in what was his first ever marathon.
On the track, Gidey last March continued his romp through the Irish record books, setting another new national record. At the Top Ten Meeting in California he recorded a time of 27:26.95. That lowered the national record by 13 seconds. The old marker was set in 2007 by Alistair Cragg.
So it's clear Martin would have a way to go before he threatened the Irish record books over 10km. However, he is 39-years-old and he's effectively a club runner who trains and enters some races to keep in shape.
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But when one looks at the domestic 10km scene, Martin's time looks a lot more impressive. It is quite close to athletes who are in their prime, winning national titles and representing Ireland internationally, some of them having won medals in the past year.
For the past two years in March the Dunboyne Road Race in Co Meath has doubled as the Athletics Ireland 10km National Championships. It is run on a flat course while the race Martin ran in Barcelona was also flat. That means comparing Martin's time with those run at the National 10km Championships over the past two years is a really worthwhile exercise.
The Athletics Ireland 10km National Championships in Dunboyne was won last year by Jack O'Leary of Mullingar Harriers AC in a time of 29:15, just 38 seconds faster than Martin, even though O'Leary is 10 years his junior.
O'Leary is also an international runner and won a team prize silver medal for Ireland last year at the European Cross Country Championships in Lagoa, Portugal. The day O'Leary won the 10km road title 12 months ago, there were 1,400 in the title race and Martin's time would have secured him 8th on the day.
At the Athletics Ireland 10km National Championships in 2024, also on the Dunboyne flat course, the victor was Sean Tobin (Clonmel CC), in a time of 29:17, some 35 seconds faster than Martin's time on New Year's Eve in Barcelona. However, the 29:57 Martin ran in Spain would have seen him finish 4th at that 10km national title race Tobin won in 2024.
And when one looks back to previous 10km National Road Championships, Martin's time in Barcelona was faster than many of the times that claimed medals, including gold.
In 2022 and 2019, the Great Ireland Run in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, doubled as the National Championships. The 2022 and 2019 Irish title race was won in times considerably slower than Martin has now run for the distance.
Michael Clohisey (Raheny Shamrock AC) won the Irish title in 2022, in a time of 30:49, and in 2019 Hiko Tonosa (Dundrum South AC) won in a time of 30:41. However, that course used in 2019 and 2022 in Phoenix Park was over draggy terrain. So comparing those times to the fast course Martin ran on New Year's Eve in Barcelona is probably stretching things.
In the 2017 national championships race for 10km - won by Mark Christie (Mullingar Harriers) in 29:30, Martin's time would have been good enough for the bronze medal.
Again, that was in Phoenix Park, so the comparison with Martin's time is just for curiosity value rather than taking it any further than that. Having said that, these are times are by 10km specialists who are much younger than Martin.
