Dan Martin achieves the best Irish Tour de France GC finish in 24 years

Dan Martin (Etixx-Quick Step) has finished the Tour de France this evening in 9th place overall, and in doing so, he has achieved the best overall finish by an Irish rider in twenty four years.

The previous best Tour finish was also 9th which Stephen Roche achieved in 1992. It had looked like Martin might have gained a place on GC for a time today when Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha) was deemed to have lost a few seconds to the Irishman.

However when times were adjusted by the race jury, Martin’s six seconds deficit on Rodriguez remained and his ninth place overall stood.

Martin finished 7’04” down on the race winner Chris Froome (Team Sky) and was less than three minutes off a podium position. It’s Martin’s best overall result at the race, with a previous best finish of 33rd place in 2013.

He’s taking a lot of confidence from the result as he said yesterday: “Looking on the GC, I am just six seconds off seventh place, but what really counts is that I am lying around 2:30 off the podium, something I would have never imagined last year. This gives me a lot of confidence for 2017.”

Martin will next line up at the Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian (1.UWT) next weekend before travelling to South America to contest the Olympic Games Road Race in Rio

He will line up in the 256.4-kilometre race alongside his cousin Nicolas Roche in the two-man team in a race that could suit the Irishman.

The course will consist of two different circuit sections with the riders taking on the ‘Grumari Circuit’ three times during the race, which contains the 1.2km, 7% average gradient Grumari climb and the 2.1km climb of Grota Funda which averages 4.5%.

The riders will then take on the second circuit section called the ‘Canoas/Vista Circuit’. On this section, the riders will tackle the Vista Chinesa climb four times which is 8.5 kilometres long at 5.7% average. After they descend for the final time, the riders will then have a 20-kilometre run-in to the finish.