With the victory this Saturday, the Colombian Daniel Martínez continues to show signs of progress and confirms himself as a winning runnerwho likes great challenges, fights to achieve them and achieves them in the end.
There is no doubt that the title in the Basque Country is proof that he was the right runner for the Ineos team to fight for the one-week races at the start of the year, since He was third in the Vuelta al Algarve, occupied the same position in Paris-Nice and has already won the title in the Spanish competition.
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Martínez, a man made for great challenges
The victory of the 25-year-old cyclist born in Soacha, Cundinamarca, is the second he has achieved in the World Tour (WT), the highest category of cycling in the world.
The first great title was achieved in 2020, when he was part of the Education First team and in the last stage of the Criterium Dauphiné he ran intelligently and managed to win the general classification. It was the first great blow of authority and with it he warned that he could consolidate himself in the international lot.
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On that occasion, the favorites like Primoz Roglic, Egan Bernal and Emanuel Buchmann withdrew, so the race was left open. He was smart to go out on the mark of Tadej Pogacar, who was his rival for the youngsters and the general. Thibaut Pinot, leader after Roglic’s retirement, did not respond. Daniel found himself on his best day and took advantage of their rivals’ bad moment to finish them off.
Pinot was second and Guillaume Martin, another Frenchman, was in third place, a victory for the Colombian that opened his eyes to the world of cycling and with which he knocked on the door of success.
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And two years earlier, Martínez stood on a podium in a WT competition for the first time. It was in the Tour of California, a competition that his compatriot Egan Bernal won and in which the second was the American rider, Tejay van Garderen.
The second podium was in the last edition of the Country-Nice, a competition in which he tried by all means to attack and try to beat Primoz Rioglic, but in the last stage, when he was preparing for the last climb, he punctured.
He was with Simon Yates, Roglic, Wout van Aert and Nairo Quintana, but the mechanical failure affected him and he had to work hard to defend the third opponent in the general classification, which he achieved at the end.
Leaving the podiums behind, Daniel Martínez has won stages in the category. The first was in the 2019 edition of Paris-Nice, in which Bernal was the champion.
Martínez prevailed on the queen day, the one that was disputed between Nice and the Col de Turini, of 181 kilometers, in which he confirmed that he was a good climber, as well as an outstanding man on the clock.
A year later, he arrived at the Tour de France with the intention of looking for something in the general classification, but he had no luck in the first stages and lost that option. That is why he sought the partial victory and it was given to him in fraction 13 between Châtel-Guyon and Pas de Peyrol (Le Puy Mary).
(You can read: World Cup in Qatar 2022: the three possible champions, according to mathematics).Thursday’s victory in the Basque Country in the stage between Vitoria-Gasteiz and Zamudio, of 185 km, was the third for him in the WT, a successful race that begins and that, for sure, will have many more victories.
LISANDRO ABEL RENGIFO
SPORTS WEATHER@LisandroAbel
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