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Daniel Martinez is the new Daniel Martin with additional letters

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Yeah, it's rather bad, the level of support he is getting from Bora, on such crucial stages. Anyway, so far so good in regards to his own performance and hope he pulls it through! Due to van Poppel abandoning he will be more exposed tomorrow and stage 19 and 20 is on where Ineos will test him. I assume Arensman to be back in full support role for Thomas. So regardless Bora will need to step it up. At least feed the guy for the sake of ...
 
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Bora is such a weird team. On paper they should be on par with Ineos (just behind Visma, UAE) in most GTs but for some reason they love to nominate guys that have no business racing a GT.
Could have really used Zwiehoff and Buchmann. But it was all worth it. Buchmann finished on the podium in Hungary and they needed a sprint train for their leadout man that dropped out of the race at the end of week two.
 
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Bora is such a weird team. On paper they should be on par with Ineos (just behind Visma, UAE) in most GTs but for some reason they love to nominate guys that have no business racing a GT.
Could have really used Zwiehoff and Buchmann. But it was all worth it. Buchmann finished on the podium in Hungary and they needed a sprint train for their leadout man that dropped out of the race at the end of week two.
Pretty much every team seems to be poorly managed, even the big budget teams only succeed in spite of themselves, and only because they hire the best riders. And Bora is doing better than Visma in this race...

I don't know if it was predictable that Dani was going to do so well on GC. I thought he said in an interview ahead of time he'd just be stage hunting.

But yea, thinking a 30 year old third-rate sprinter was going to do something in this race when most of the best sprinters are there is just delusional.
 
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To be honest Danny Van Poppel have been working for Dani in several stages, more than sprinting, the same goes for Mullen or Koch, was more of a GC train to keep the colombian safe in flat stages and in the start of crucial points of the race for the positioning than a sprint train. Maybe tha´st the reason behind DFM surviving for once the first half of a GT wihtout troubles.



And Yes, the dropout of Lipowitz was a huge blow, Aleotti was quite decent until stage 16, now he rans out of energy it seems
 
They are lucky because Ineos only does the train thing. They never attack without a train. So they are working for Martinez. Now also every team is riding for gc positions and I'Connor is fading.
Yesterday was just bad because he couldn't really get his food and bottles.
I think Bora is surprised that Martinez is so strong that noone despite Pog can attack him. If they knew that they wouldn't bring such a weird team. Zwiehoff was also left out of the team shortly before the start. Same with Buchmann. Both would have been there yesterday.
I still don't totally get what they wanted with this lineup. They said they wanted to go for stages with Koch. In hingsight that sounds really stupid.
 
They are really missing Lipowitz. I think that was the biggest hole that it was left in Bahrain. But yeah, the team weakness and depth has been exposed in the third week. I think Martinez has been lucky, and I knock on wood, because he has been alone for many kilometers.

In addition to this, I have noticed that He is riding very conservative, just because he doesn't want to risk his second place by blowing up. And without teammates, I don't blame him. You can see that he has more power to give at the end of the mountain stages but wants to play it safe. This would be his biggest result of his career. I really hope that he ends second and safely.

If he finishes in good health I think they will take him as a domestique for Roglic for the Tour. He can go all in for his leader there without any risks.
 
They are really missing Lipowitz. I think that was the biggest hole that it was left in Bahrain. But yeah, the team weakness and depth has been exposed in the third week. I think Martinez has been lucky, and I knock on wood, because he has been alone for many kilometers.

In addition to this, I have noticed that He is riding very conservative, just because he doesn't want to risk his second place by blowing up. And without teammates, I don't blame him. You can see that he has more power to give at the end of the mountain stages but wants to play it safe. This would be his biggest result of his career. I really hope that he ends second and safely.

If he finishes in good health I think they will take him as a domestique for Roglic for the Tour. He can go all in for his leader there without any risks.
Yeah, Aleotti is a fine rider for the medium mountains, but the high mountains are just a bit too much for him, mainly multi-mountain stages. He overperformed during the first 2 weeks, but now the high mountains took a toll on him.

Still, Bora can be happy with how he performed and really happy with how Dani Martinez, who was probably intended to play Higuita's role in one week stage race, has performed as a gc leader with limited climbing support.

Frankly you can blame him for racing a bit more conservative, he is on his way to get his first gt podium (a 2nd place) as a gt leader.
 
Nairo will be in the break for stage 20 so Martinez will have to look for other “outside” aid (😂) when all his BORA teammates are gone by half way up the 1st of the back to back big climbs. If Thomas wants to make a push to jump to 2nd spot (which I’m not sure he cares) he might ask Ineos to drive a decent pace from the start of the climbing—not because they think they can drop Martinez but can have him isolated with 80 km to race.
 
Nairo will be in the break for stage 20 so Martinez will have to look for other “outside” aid (😂) when all his BORA teammates are gone by half way up the 1st of the back to back big climbs. If Thomas wants to make a push to jump to 2nd spot (which I’m not sure he cares) he might ask Ineos to drive a decent pace from the start of the climbing—not because they think they can drop Martinez but can have him isolated with 80 km to race.
They need to have their own guys in the breakaway and hope that at least one of them is still in front of the leaders group after the first round of Monte Grappa. Doesn't really matter if Martinez is isolated on the final climb. Just need to get him their without wasting too much energy.
 
Nairo will be in the break for stage 20 so Martinez will have to look for other “outside” aid (😂) when all his BORA teammates are gone by half way up the 1st of the back to back big climbs. If Thomas wants to make a push to jump to 2nd spot (which I’m not sure he cares) he might ask Ineos to drive a decent pace from the start of the climbing—not because they think they can drop Martinez but can have him isolated with 80 km to race.
I am afraid Nairo will be with Einer. It is the last hard mountain stage and I doubt that He will leave his leader isolated. Unless someone else stays with Einer, but who? Pelayo is in the break today and is spending some energy.
 
I had major doubts before the race, but he has been rock-solid here. I don't even blame him one bit for how he rode, as boring as the race for 2nd was. He had next to no team after Lipo abandoned, and he got as much out of the race as he could have hoped for.
Yeah. Didn't even get 2nd by being the most consistent, but was quite clearly the 2nd best climber for the entire race, even if he could rarely make the difference to stay away.
 
yeah.
This will be his best performance ever, on a GT.
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