It was brilliant seeing the pair of Irish cousins, Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche, off the front on the final climb during stage 9 at the Vuelta a Espana today. However, their unity was short lived. Nicolas just did not have enough to keep pace with his younger cousin, and was forced to fall back to the chase group. Daniel, with his familiar bobbing style of attacking a climb, put a great amount of determination into the effort with about 5km to go. His effort eventually drew out Vincenzo Nibali, and then a select group including, Bradley Wiggins, and put race leader Joaquim Rodriguez on the ropes, and ultimately saw him fall out of the disintigrating group of chasers. Even after initiating the selection, Martin still had enough juice to sprint away from the elite group, and claim the stage, arms aloft in a V for victory salute.
As a result of his day's effort, Martin sits in 12th place on G.C., 4th place in the Points competition, leads the Mountains competition, and is 4th in the Allround competition. Not seen in the other Grand Tours, the Allround competition at the Vuelta combines a riders' placings in the other three competions (G.C., Points, Mountains) and awards the rider with the lowest combined total a special white, Allround jersey.
No comments:
Post a Comment