Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) may not have made the top three in the Tour de France’s overall classification but the Irishman will stand on the podium in Paris after he was awarded the 'Super Combative' prize. He took the honour following a mixture of public and jury voting, beating Lawson Craddock, Alejandro Valverde, Julian Alaphilippe and several others.
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Martin wasn’t aware of the news when he crossed the line in Saturday's penultimate-stage time trial and looked shocked when he was told he would have a trip to the rostrum in Paris.
He said that his aggressive approach was not an effort to provide entertainment, but the prize meant a lot to him all the same.
"I don’t really race to make the race entertaining, I always try to calculate when to attack and try to make it count. I’m racing to win, but that’s incredible," Martin said after the stage. "I’m not sure that anyone has won it without winning it on a single day but I just try my best every day.
"I think you see when we stopped to get rid of the pepper spray the other day, you see me, Tom [Dumoulin], [Primoz] Roglic and Geraint [Thomas] just stood there having a chat. It shows the mutual respect that we have for each other. For a time yesterday, we were all completely empty but we were trying to attack the hell out of each other. It made for great racing but it’s also great to be a part of the race.”