Team Garmin-Transitions’ Dan Martin spoke with a href=”http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/4131/Giro-dItalia-Martin-maintains-mellow-mood-despite-day-three-disappointment.aspx”>VeloNation about his revised outlook on the Giro.
Garmin Transitions pro Dan Martin is managing to remain positive about this year’s Giro, despite losing seven minutes and 59 seconds on Monday’s third stage of the Grand Tour.
The Irishman had gone into the event hoping to take a high overall placing, knowing that he would be able to ride his own race because his team-mate Christian Vande Velde was using it to prepare for the Tour de France.
Three stages into it, though, he is already 106th overall, nine minutes and seven seconds off the Maglia Rosa held by Alexandre Vinokourov.
It was reasonable to expect the 23 year old to be crestfallen on Monday evening, yet he was surprisingly mellow about the day’s events.
“I stayed upright somehow, but I got caught up in the crash that ended VDV’s [Christian Vande Velde’s] race. That is pretty much what split the group,” he told VeloNation.com.
“We shouldn’t really have lost so much time…we got into a group of 20-25 riders and were maybe 20 seconds off the back of the front group with 20 kilometre to go, but then everyone sat up.
“I couldn’t really understand it – we had ridden that hard to get close to the group but they all just started riding easy. It was a weird situation and we ended up losing a lot more time than we should have. But at least I am still in the race.”
The big news of the day was Vande Velde’s enforced abandon. As was the case last year, he crashed on day three of the race, sustaining fractures. The only silver lining was the fact that it was ‘only’ his collarbone which was broken, rather than the pelvis and vertebrae of twelve months ago.
More photos from the Giro d’Italia:
