Dan Martin retains the lead in the Volta a Catalunya with just two stages remaining
By Brian Canty
Daniel Martin has defended his leader’s jersey on the Volta a Catalunya and even extended his lead in the race despite today’s fifth stage ending in a bunch sprint.
After his breakaway and climbing heroics on the queen mountain stage of yesterday, Martin demonstrated his versatility today by taking 9th in the bunch sprint that settled the stage into Lleid after 157km.
With small gaps emerging down the field in the very fast finale, some of Martin’s main rivals for the overall win found themselves on the wrong side of a three second gap that emerged between 13th and 14th across the line. Those a little further back lost a further six seconds when a gap appeared at other places in the top 30 riders across the line.
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Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), who is in second place overall and is Martin’s biggest threat for outright victory, was among those riders to lose three seconds to the Irishman at the finish. And Martin banked another second after he grabbed a time bonus by taking third in the second intermediate sprint of the day.
Both gains may only have added to his lead by four seconds – giving him 14 seconds of daylight over Rodriguez – but they proved Martin had physically and mentally recovered after a very hard effort yesterday.
And while the Garmin-Sharp rider told stickybottle last night he was not overly concerned if he won the race outright, his attention to detail on the road today tells another story.
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Nicolas Roche (Saxo-Tinkoff) was in that section of the bunch today that lost nine seconds to stage winner Francois Parisien (Argos-Shimano).
He is now 56th overall, 18:52 down on Martin. He lost a huge amount of time yesterday after going in the large early breakaway from which Martin made his stage-winning move. However, Roche took a large number of climbing and sprint classification points and is now 4th and 3rd overall respectively in those classifications.
Stage 5: Rialp - Lleid 156.5km
1 Francois Parisien (Can) Team Argos-Shimano 3:32:02
2 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Ag2R La Mondiale
3 Stéphane Poulhies (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits
4 Daniele Ratto (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling
5 Danilo Wyss (Swi) BMC Racing Team
6 Andrew Fenn (GBr) Omega Pharma-Quick Step
7 Gianni Meersman (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step
8 Maurits Lammertink (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
9 Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin-Sharp
10 Thomas Damuseau (Fra) Team Argos-Shimano
11 Julien Simon (Fra) Sojasun
12 Brett Lancaster (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge
13 Pim Ligthart (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
14 Francesco Gavazzi (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:00:03
15 Jean-Lou Paiani (Fra) Sojasun
16 Michel Kreder (Ned) Garmin-Sharp
17 Joaquim Rodriguez Oliver (Spa) Katusha
18 Manuel Antonio Leal Cardoso (Por) Caja Rural
19 Rudy Molard (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits
20 Jesus Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team
103 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Saxo-Tinkoff @ 9 secs
General Classification
1 Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin-Sharp 22:20:39
2 Joaquim Rodriguez Oliver (Spa) Katusha 0:00:14
3 Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas (Col) Movistar Team 0:00:42
4 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling 0:00:46
5 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Lampre-Merida 0:00:47
6 Robert Gesink (Ned) Blanco Pro Cycling Team 0:00:59
7 Przemyslaw Niemiec (Pol) Lampre-Merida 0:01:10
8 Peter Stetina (USA) Garmin-Sharp 0:01:17
9 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ 0:01:23
10 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Lotto Belisol 0:01:25
11 Thomas Danielson (USA) Garmin-Sharp 0:01:33
12 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Astana Pro Team 0:01:55
13 Simon Spilak (Slo) Katusha 0:01:59
14 Steve Morabito (Swi) BMC Racing Team 0:02:01
15 Mikel Nieve Ituralde (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:02:29
16 Egor Silin (Rus) Astana Pro Team 0:02:39
17 Daniel Navarro Garcia (Spa) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 0:02:42
18 Igor Anton Hernandez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:02:44
19 Tiago Machado (Por) RadioShack Leopard 0:02:48
20 Matthew Busche (USA) RadioShack Leopard 0:02:52
56 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:18:52
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