Daniel Felipe Martínez has passed the first mountain test in the Algarve with flying colours. He took the win ahead of Remco Evenepoel in the final sprint on the Alto da Fóia after 171.9 kilometres of racing. Martínez started the race with the defending champion's bib number 1 and now takes the leader's jersey in this year's edition of the race.
For BORA - hansgrohe, the day was exactly like the stage profile: a rollercoaster. After the crashes yesterday, Alex Hajek was unable to start due to a knee injury, while Marco Haller started the stage with painful abrasions. But morale grew as the altitude increased. After Jordi Meeus kept the climbers out of the wind in the first half, Max Schachmann and Bob Jungels brought them into a promising position in the difficult final section. Dani Martínez completed the team's great work with his stage win, and 4th place for Sergio Higuita rounded off a strong team result.
Result
01 D. Martínez 4:40:20
02 R. Evenepoel +0:00
03 S. Kuss +0:06
04 S. Higuita +0:06
From the finish line
Dani Martínez: "We are not the favorites in this race. We have some strong opponents. But today was an important day and we wanted to take our chances. The whole team worked very well, and we took advantage of that. In the end, I had the necessary legs in the sprint."
DS Christian Pömer: "We came here with the goal of winning a stage and Dani achieved that impressively today. He completed a very strong team performance. The way he rode to victory was outstanding. To put in such a long and powerful sprint in the wind against Remco Evenepoel - chapeau!"
"We reached our goal and now we're planning from day to day. Tomorrow is more for the sprinters, then we have the time trial, and on Sunday it’s the GC showdown. Even though we have the jersey today, a look at the start list shows that we are not the top contenders for overall victory."