Daniel Martin targets stage wins with three more days to go at the Vuelta a Espana 2011
Daniel Martin of team Garmin Cervelo is having a brilliant season and his performance at the Vuelta a Espana reflects the image of his skills. He has secured the stage 9 win and the King of Mountain jersey for the 10th and 11th stage.
The 25-year-old started the tour rather slowly but soon picked up the pace as he finished third at stage 4 of the Grand Tour after showing some serious sprinting skills throughout.
The Irishman finished the 17th stage at fourth position as he was 24 seconds behind the race leader Christopher Froome of Sky Procycling with Juan Jose Cobo Acebo of Geox-TMC at second and Bauke Mollema of Rabobank at third position. He was at
the 14th position after the stage 17 general classifications with 7 minutes and 22 seconds behind the overall leader Juan Jose Cobo Acebo as Daniel is at the 8th slot with 67 points as of the stage 17 classifications.
Martin launched attacks but could not gain any lead until the last five kilometres at stage 17 and was leading the stage with Amets Txurruka, Bruseghin and Anker Sorensen. The Irishman gained a lead of eight seconds over Bruseghin but could not continue
his dominance and finished 3 seconds behind Bauke Mollema.
On finishing stage 17 at the fourth position Martin mentioned that he was disappointed initially as he thought he could have done better only if he had waited to launch the attack as he said, “When I first finished I thought I'd made an error in attacking
so early but in hindsight, with how Cobo and Froome are going, I knew I had to at least try and beat them. Fourth on the stage is a good result. If I hadn't attacked, I might have finished third but that's no real big difference. I tried to win the stage and
that's the important thing.”
Team Garmin’s rider finished stage 18 of Vuelta a Espana at the 34th position which does not make any changes to his general classification and he is still at the 14 position overall. With only two stages left before the final 21st
stage at Madrid, Daniel believes that he will target the stage wins as he is over 7 minutes behind the race leader Juan Jose Cobo and it is unrealistic to target the general classifications.
Martin is the only Irish cyclist to win the King of Mountains classification jersey at the Vuelta for two consecutive stages as he wore it for the 10th and 11th stage. He finished first at the Giro della Toscana 2011, second at the
Irish National Elite Road Race Championships 2011 and third overall at the Tour of Catalunya this year.
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