Dan Martin (Cannondale Garmin) showed that his form is coming good on the final stage of the Tour of Catalonia, as he put in an aggressive attack in the last five kilometres, only to be caught in the final metres. He also finished in the top ten overall.
He explained on the team’s website afterwards “I knew the last stage suited me with the short climbs and hoped that by attacking from afar I could benefit from the GC guys watching each other.”
“But as it turned out they shut my first attack down immediately, so I managed to find another opportunity to attack. I hoped being a little further down on GC would mean the race would stall a bit and that happened, but the headwind from 2km until 1km to go didn’t help. The last kilometre was super fast and the peloton just carried more speed, and easily. I’m gutted to come so close as we started the stage aiming to win but the most important thing is we tried, we were aggressive and had no fear to attack, and we came really close to pulling off victory.”
“The team really picked ourselves up after the crosswind stage. That is the most important thing and I wanted to try pay them back for the hard work with the win today but at least we put on a good race and showed we never give up. Its still nice to finish top ten and I’m really happy with my condition moving towards my objectives at the Ardennes Classics.”
