Despite their seemingly identical fear of surnames, Dan Martin and Tony Martin are not related. Time trialist, Tony Martin, is fully German, while 2013 Liege-Bastogne-Liege winner, Dan Martin, is fairly Irish. Dan was born in Birmingham and has only had since 2004 to work on his Irish accent. He is, however, Stephen Roche‘s nephew, so you can’t really quibble with his Irish cycling qualifications.
A promotion
Until this season, I’d filed Dan Martin in the same section that Roman Kreuziger exited last week but that now seems entirely inappropriate. As well as this Monument victory, he also won the Volta a Catalunya last month.
This means that the segment of the peloton which specialises in solid-but-faceless competence has lost members at a worrying rate this last week or so. Hopefully Jurgen Van Den Broeck is going to continue to neither impress nor disappoint while new non-faces are recruited.
How did Dan Martin win?
I think he was just less tired at the end. There were some reasons for that, both tactical and physiological, but let’s not get too bogged down in fine detail on what is, after all, a Monday.
Dan Martin felt slightly less horrendous than anyone else at the end of Liege-Bastogne-Liege, so he rode slightly faster in order that he could be first across the line. Then they gave him some stuff.
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