Young Irish climber Dan Martin battled through a rain-lashed final stage of the Tour of Poland on Saturday to clinch his Garmin-Transition team’s first ever ProTour stage race win.
Martin finished 23rd, safely in the peloton, on the 163.9km stage to Krakow, taken in a bunch sprint by Germany’s Andre Greipel.
At the end of the seven-day race, the 23-year-old Irishman finished just eight seconds ahead overall of Slovenian Grega Bole, with Dutchman Bauke Mollema in third.
SLIPPERY ROADS
“This last stage was really hard and the rain made the roads very slippery, but fortunately I had my teammates to look after me all the way,” Martin told reporters. “We’ve won the best team classification too and that’s great because it shows what a good job they all did getting me here [to win] today.”
Only the 10th Irishman to take part in the 82-year-old race and the first to win it, Martin had moved into the lead after his stage five victory on the race’s only summit finish.
FIRST OVERALL WIN
Second on the prestigious Tour of Catalunya last year, Martin’s victory in Poland is both his and his team’s first overall win in a ProTour race since Garmin-Transitions joined cycling’s top league in 2008.
“We took everything they threw at us and that was quite a lot,” Martin said. “There was the bad weather, lots of attacks yesterday and even two riders with flat tires on today’s finishing circuit. It’s been an incredible week and one I’ll never forget.”
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