Irish pro Daniel Martin starts the Vuelta a España today on what is his 25th birthday. He’s keen to see how he can fare in terms of the general classification, but admits that his Garmin-Cervélo team isn’t hung up on gaining time in the opening team time trial.
“We’ll ride the full course this afternoon,” he told VeloNation earlier today, “but have already done the climb. We have done some efforts there to try to gauge the effort. It is a horrible TT course, it is so dangerous. The objective really is stay safe, we are not really worried about how much time we are going to lose.
“It is just a matter of riding at a safe speed and just getting around in one piece. I’m sure a lot of teams are going to be going through the same kind of idea. The times gained and lost aren’t that important over three weeks.”
The 13.5 kilometre effort starts and finishes in Benidorm and follows a route that Martin feels is a risky one. “We go through a pedestrianised area, it is really narrow and it is covered in sand,” he explained. “There are a couple of corners on slippery pavement…it is not actually tarmac, it is paving stones. There is quite a long stretch on the seafront…it is really windy here as well, so that makes it even more dangerous.
“It would be dodgy on an individual TT bike but with nine guys it is going to be…interesting. But we will just try to stay safe and get through it.”
Martin showed strong form recently in the Tour of Poland, winning the toughest stage and finishing second overall. The 2010 defending champion lost the race to Peter Sagan (Liquigas Cannondale), but would most likely have triumphed overall if it were not for the time bonuses available in intermediate and finishing sprints. He was clearly the strongest climber in the race.
Since then, he said he has focussed on being as fresh starting the Vuelta. Because of that, he said that he isn’t sure how Tuesday’s first mountain stage will go. “I didn’t really train much since Poland, in terms of climbing and stuff,” he said. “I was really tired after Poland so I was just trying to recover and enter into this race as fresh as possible.
“Tuesday is going to be a bit of an unknown, but whatever happens on Tuesday, I’m not going to let it affect me for the rest of the race. I am expecting maybe to be a bit blocked on that stage and perhaps not perform as well as I might, but hopefully to come around for the harder stages in week two.”
In a long interview with VeloNation published earlier this week, he said that he didn’t want to make predications about a final result in the race. Martin explained that he hasn’t been consistent over three weeks in the past but, being a bit older and stronger, is hopeful that he can do in a Grand Tour what he has otherwise been able to do in shorter stage races.
“I will give my best every day. I think stages eight through to sixteen are going to be the important ones,” he said. “I haven’t raced a lot with many of these riders, and it is hard to say where my form is at in the long climbs as well. But I am just going to go into it with the best hopes. I have a really strong team supporting me and will do my best.”