The Israel Start-Up Nation riders put on another strong performance in Tour of the Alps this Tuesday, as Dan Martin fought admirably to take third place on the difficult stage 2 of the race.
With a length of only 121.5 km but nearly 3,000 meters of climbing to overcome, it was clear to everyone that this stage was going to be a challenging day in the saddle for the riders.
As expected, a small breakaway got away early on the stage. However, the peloton never let the group get a gap of more than three minutes and as the riders started on the penultimate climb of the day, it all came back together again.
The pre-race favorites attacked as soon as the race hit the steep slopes of the ascent. Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange) ended up soloing away, while Martin did well to manage his effort intelligently, which allowed him to come back to the main chase group and fight for the podium.
Ultimately, Martin took third place, which is also his position in the general classification. Alessandro De Marchi is second in the KOM classification, but will wear the blue jersey again tomorrow as the leader, Yates, also leads the race overall.
Dan Martin: “Today was a good test for me. I suffered a bit at the bottom of the final climb and got dropped but I stayed focused and did a big effort to move up. On the last climb, it was really aggressive with multiple attacks. I felt quite good at that moment and I made another big effort to go across to a strong group that was chasing Yates. Sivakov then went away with five kilometers to go and we just kept going full gas to the finish to get the best result possible. There is still a long time to the Giro and today was definitely a good sign ahead that. I’m quite satisfied with how it went today.”
