‘I’m looking forward to the tour as a fan’: Tony Martin can’t miss the grave agony

“I am looking forward to the tour as a fan.”
Tony Martin does not miss the grave agony

06/30/2022, 2:27 pm

When the Tour de France begins in Copenhagen on Friday, you’ll miss a legend from the field: Five-time winner of the world’s most important cycling race Tony Martin will be watching from afar after his retirement. It is not sad.

When the Tour de France begins in Copenhagen on Friday, a great sporting figure will be absent: eight-time world champion Tony Martin, who has competed 13 times in the Tour de France, ended his impressive run last year. He missed the tour, but he didn’t miss it: “I’m really glad I won’t be there this year,” said the 37-year-old. sport.de: “For all the euphoria, all the prestige and all the noise, for us drivers, the Tour is also a terrible agony and a great danger. I also fell often and hard.”

The four-time world champion, who has run the Tour de France 13 times and reached the finish line in Paris seven times, will watch the race at home on TV in a relaxed manner. “After 13 years on the Tour and not coming home in the summer, I am now enjoying my family vacation and looking forward to the Tour as a fan,” Martin said.

The favorite for him is defending champion Tadej Pojakar, who is challenging former Jumbo-Visma captain Primoz Roglic for Martin. “I think it will be a duel between him and Roglic,” said Martin. “Bojacar is very talented physically. He is an exceptional athlete of Roglic’s level.”

Great faith in German successes

The decision could already be made in Phases 11 and 12, when Tour de France planners sent the field over the Galibier and then just a day later chased down Alpe D’Huez at 1,850 metres. But Martin warns: “You also have to survive the nervous flat stages in the first week. Keywords: rim wind, falls, cobblestones. Perhaps a trained driver will be pushed back. If the summit crystallizes after that, the decision will be made in these stages”.

Martin has great confidence in the nine German professionals. “If I rode Bora smartly, she would have plenty of second-row riders who could win stages at the moment of surprise,” said, who himself completed five rounds that won the de France stage. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

The long-running “Capitaine de Route”, which was highly respected as a veteran of the nerves of the biggest races and worked by hand, fell twice in its last round in 2021: right in the first stage was attacked by a spectator who was holding a banner there was a banner from Street cardboard, he got off his bike, then a few days later he fell again – this time he could no longer ride his bike and ended his brilliant career with extensive injuries in the hospital. A little later he announced the end of his career. In the fall of 2021, Martin said goodbye to the world title in the time trial with the German mixed relay – this was the eighth world title for the native Brandenburg.