Ride of real quality keeps Dan Martin Paris-Nice dream alive
Dan Martin has put in a ride of real quality against the watch at Paris-Nice. But the biggest fly in his ointment is now his team mate Julian Alaphilippe, above.
Dan Martin has put in an excellent time trial effort in Paris-Nice to climb the general classification and keep his general classification hope alive.
The race against the clock has so often been the weakest part of Martin’s game, but not today.
With the final 3km of the 14.5km test to Mont Brouilly uphill, it was clearly much to the QuickStep man’s liking.
And at the end of the day he finished in 13th place, having lost time to some of his rivals but still kept himself in contention with the real climbing still to come.
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His result was enough to bump up a couple of places higher overall and he is now in 5th place going into tomorrow’s stage.
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However, it is his team mate Julian Alaphilippe who won the stage and took the yellow jersey.
The young French hope looked by far the strongest in the final of Sunday’s opener when he attacked in the last kilometre and was only beaten for victory by Arnaud Demare (FDJ) in a two-up sprint.
Today he beat Alberto Contador (Trek Segafredo) by 19 seconds, with another contender for outright victory Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Soudal) in 3rd just one second slower.
Tomorrow’s stage features a number of climbs but could still be one of the sprinters or a breakaway before the real climbs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
It is likely Saturday’s cat 1 summit finish will be the real test and if Martin is to get onto the podium or even win the race overall, he will need to make his move there and hope others falter.
Yesterday’s winner Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) is 26th overall after the TT while Nicolas Roche (BMC Racing) is 46th and Philip Deignan (Team Sky) is 125th.
Stage 4: Beaujeu-Mont Brouilly (14.5km TT)
1 Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Quick-Step Floors 0:21:39
2 Alberto Contador (Spa) Trek-Segafredo 0:00:19
3 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto Soudal 0:00:20
4 Gorka Izagirre (Spa) Movistar Team
5 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin 0:00:33
6 David De La Cruz (Spa) Quick-Step Floors 0:00:45
7 Michael Matthews (Aus) Team Sunweb 0:00:47
8 Sergio Henao (Col) Team Sky 0:00:48
9 Jon Izaguirre (Spa) Bahrain-Merida 0:00:49
10 Richie Porte (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:00:50
11 Alexey Lutsenko (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 0:00:54
12 Sam Oomen (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:00:59
13 Daniel Martin (Irl) Quick-Step Floors 0:01:03
14 Simon Yates (GBr) Orica-Scott 0:01:04
15 Yves Lampaert (Bel) Quick-Step Floors
55 Nicolas Roche (Irl) BMC Racing Team 0:01:53
105 Philip Deignan (Irl) Team Sky 0:02:53
155 Sam Bennett (Irl) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:04:18
General Classification
1 Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Quick-Step Floors 12:36:27
2 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto Soudal 0:00:33
3 Gorka Izagirre (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:47
4 Sergio Henao (Col) Team Sky 0:01:05
5 Daniel Martin (Irl) Quick-Step Floors 0:01:20
6 Philippe Gilbert (Bel) Quick-Step Floors 0:01:24
7 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin 0:01:28
8 Alberto Contador (Spa) Trek-Segafredo 0:01:31
9 Rudy Molard (Fra) FDJ 0:01:32
10 Arnaud Demare (Fra) FDJ 0:01:35
11 Romain Hardy (Fra) Fortuneo - Vital Concept 0:01:58
12 Yves Lampaert (Bel) Quick-Step Floors
13 Jon Izaguirre (Spa) Bahrain-Merida 0:02:01
14 Kristijan Koren (Slo) Cannondale-Drapac 0:02:10
15 Simon Yates (GBr) Orica-Scott 0:02:16
26 Sam Bennett (Irl) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:06:19
46 Nicolas Roche (Irl) BMC Racing Team 0:18:14
125 Philip Deignan (Irl) Team Sky 0:34:52
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