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He was caught in the side winds and he was scrambled on the pavement. He punctured and crashed, and was heard screaming in the shower of his team bus.
He won one stage and lost another, and was last seen on the 200 km from Lourdes to Laruns. all the riders who will stand on or near the winner's podium.
After almost three weeks, he still has two days of saddle and he must be one of the strongest men in Irish sport.
I met Dan Martin a few weeks before this year's Tour de France, and he told me how much he was looking forward to. Compared to the first time that he did the Tour, and hated every second. Or at least at each stage – flat, mountainous, whatever they put in between.
"This first round in 2012 was such a shock," he said. "Just the intensity, the attention that follows you at every moment of the day, I hated every second, I came back in 2013, mentally prepared for the trouble, and that's it." at that time I fell in love with it, it was amazing, it's crazy, really crazy, 5,000 vehicles traveling together in France for three weeks, all for a group of bikers
"Then in 2014, I watched it at home after I broke my clavicle at the Giro, and all I wanted was it Be there. I could not even look at it because I missed it so much.
"It's a roller coaster, but an absolute buzz.And everything comes from something that starts as a hobby for so many people.I am just lucky enough to call it my job, and succeed in making some people happy which is essentially a selfish act of trying to win races. "
Staying Secure
Then I asked him to act from try to win this year's race: "Everyone has a bad day at the Tour," he said. "It depends on the bad day of who is the least bad."
On the first day, the 201-km flat from Noirmoutier-en-l to Fontenay-le-Comte, Martin spent one of those good days picking up 51 seconds over defending champion Chris Froome just staying safe in the pack.
Day 3 was eliminated, the 35-kilometer team time trial around Cholet, or rather his team United Arab Emirates, one minute and 38 seconds After two more days to ride around Brittany, by testing his legs from La Baule to Sarzeau and finishing sixth on Lorient's stage in Quimper, Martin enters Day Six with a little revenge on his mind. The last time the race was over on Mûr-de-Bretagne, Brittany's Alpe d'Huez, was in 2015, and Martin was at the front, only to lose the # 39; final attack to Alexis Vuillermoz of France, finishing second. Three years later – and five years after winning his first stage of the Tour at Bagnères-de-Bigorre in the Pyrenees – Martin did not deceive himself, winning the final attack at one second. another Frenchman Pierre Latour. "This makes the Tour de France a success for us and everything else is a bonus."
Two days later, still 21st overall, Martin experienced one of his worst days, crushing himself to nearly 17 km to go on stage 8, the apartment 181 km from Dreux to Amiens. Continuing with his teammates to limit losses, he finished 1:16 behind the peloton and most of his podiums. "There is nothing broken but I am torn apart," he said. "I landed on my back but I bounced well." He dropped to 31st overall, a place behind Peter Sagan.
Second Bonus
On Sunday, he climbed again on the 156.5 km of stage 9 of Arras to Roubaix, with 21.7 km of paved road, in 15 different sections, better than any of the main contenders, picking up one After the first day of rest, and the first day in the Alps, Martin still rolled harder, and climbed up seven places in the overall standings after a daring attack up # 39, on the last climb, the Col de la Colombière. Julian Alaphilippe, winner of the stage, has not managed to beat the clock, but Martin's 1613m record is a record (his 21.50 eclipses of Juan Mauricio Soler in 2007, 22.05, according to climbing-records.com)
12, step 11 from Albertville to La Rosière, and, viola! Geraint Thomas took the lead of Team Sky, the stage victory and the yellow jersey in one go. Martin finished sixth, taking a half-minute on some of his podiums, and climbed to 10th place
The next day, it was Alpe d'Huez, and, Viola, Thomas won again: Martin finished 12th, one day somewhere between the good and the bad.
Two days later, Martin spends another of his worst days, on the 188th stage of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux in Mende, 188 km, with only 5km of goal on the base of the ascent final of the Côte de la Croix Neuve. He lost the two-minute bones on his overall ranking rivals, most of them waiting for a wheel change.
"That's what it is, is not it?" He said. At age 31, on his sixth lap, and after finishing sixth overall last year despite a fall in the 9th stage and two fractured vertebrae, Martin knows that it's exactly what's going on. is the Tour.
Gain of altitude
Three days later, on the 65th stage 17 of Bagnères-de-Luchon at the Col de Portet, Martin's helmet rises again, just behind the Colombian Nairo Quintana. In 1965, at stage 19 from Lourdes to Laruns (200km), with an altitude gain of 4800m, a little more than half the height of Mount Everest, Martin experienced another of his worst days. Thomas and Froome and Co, and 6:50 in front of Quintana.
He is now eighth overall, at 6:39 behind Thomas, and at 4:15 with Primoz Roglic, of Slovakia, third.
There is still the 31km time trial of Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle in Espelette The solemn race on Sunday from Houilles to the Champs-Élysées in Paris, by then the race places and podium decided whose bad days are the least bad.
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