Dan Martin gains time after big performance on Giro | Sticky Bottle

*Dan Martin looks shattered after today's stage at the Giro but the Irish rider looked in fantastic shape on the final climb and rode away from most of his rivals*

Dan Martin has emerged as one of the very best on the first big day of climbing at the Giro d'Italia, where he took 3rd on the stage and also gained vital time on most of his rivals.

On today's 160km stage 6 from Grotte di Frasassi to Ascoli Piceno, Gino Mäder (Bahrain-Victorious) was the only survivor from the early breakaway and he took victory on the summit finish in wet and cold conditions.

Just behind the stage winner, the remains of the peloton became a select group on the climb and then split to pieces, with four riders putting time into the others and finishing just 12 seconds down on Mäder.

In that four-rider group containing the best of the favourites was: Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation), Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo).

*Gino Mäder takes a brilliant win after surviving from the early breakaway on what was a very hard day at the Giro*

Just 12 seconds after Mäder won the stage, Bernal won the sprint for 2nd from Ireland's Martin and Evenepoel. Italian rider Ciccone was next, in 5th, losing two seconds to the big three in the sprint to the line.

The rest of the big names were scattered back the road and while the gaps were small Dan Martin, who fell late in the stage today, will take great encouragement from the fact that he was best today on the climb, along with Bernal and Evenepoel.

Most of the other highly fancied riders finished in a group 17 seconds down on the Dan Martin group, including Simon Yates (BikeExchange), Hugh Carthy (EF Education Nippo) and Alexander Vlasov (Astana Premier Tech).

None of those riders was able to follow the pace of Bernal when he pressed on the final climb after his team, especially Filippo Ganna, had ridden so hard on the front of the ever-reducing bunch in the final hour of racing.

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Only Martin, Evenepoel and Ciccone could follow Bernal and all four were rewarded with time gains on their main rivals today. Simon Yates is clearly showing patchy form, though he is still well in contention.

Attila Valter, the 22-year-old Hungarian rider with Groupama-FDJ, finished in the group with Yates, Carthy and Vlasov today. And as he started the day 4th overall he is the new race leader.

The man who wore the maglia rosa today, Dan Martin's team mate Alessandro De Marchi, was caught out on a descent during the stage when the peloton split and lost a huge amount of time today.

For his efforts Dan Martin now moves up ten places to 9th overall. Though he has work to do before clawing his way into a podium position, he looked in fantastic shape today and even threw in a small attack with about 2km to go.

More to come.