While France's wait for a Tour de France stage winner on Bastille Day continued on Monday, the home nation did at least come away with a Frenchman in a leader's jersey as Lenny Martinez rode into polka dots on stage 10.
No Frenchman has won a Tour stage on July 14, France's national day, since Warren Barguil won in Foix back in 2017, but Martinez finishes the day with something for home fans to cheer.
The 22-year-old Bahrain Victorious rider made the 29-man break of the day and led the race over the first five second-category climbs on a stage which featured 4,300 metres of climbing, most of the race so far.
He'd drop back with 30km to go, leaving seven of his breakmates to contest the stage win, with Giro d'Italia champion Simon Yates coming out on top. However, Martinez's 25 points, added to two taken on stage 4, saw him end the day leading the mountain classification.
"When I broke away, I was thinking about both the stage and the polka dot jersey," Martinez said after the stage. "But I quickly realised that I would come up short to fight for the stage, the others were just too strong.
"I didn't want to leave empty-handed, so I focused on the sprints on the climbs to collect points."
With 27 points, Martinez now heads up the classification, 11 clear of race leader Ben Healy, while Michael Woods lies in third, 16 points back.
He's the 58th French rider to wear the polka dot jersey and follows in the wheeltracks of his grandfather Mariano Martínez, who won the classification at the 1978 Tour. Mariano finished 10th that year, also winning a stage, while in 1980 he won in Morzine on Bastille Day.
"Of course, it feels strange to wear the polka dot jersey that my grandfather won so long ago," Martinez said. "I'm sure he must be proud of me. Now I'm going to try to keep it as long as possible, maybe even until Paris, but with Tadej Pogačar it's going to be difficult.
"In any case, it gives me a great goal to aim for. It's true that in the final I rode with Pogačar and Vingegaard, but that was just because I wanted to finish in the top 10. It's a bit anecdotal, but after such a great day, I didn't want to finish 20th, for example."
Bahrain Victorious directeur sportif Romain Kreuziger said the team can be proud of Martinez's efforts in the Massif Central, though an ongoing bid for the classification victory will have to be balanced with their general goal of trying to win a stage this July.
"I think we should be proud that Lenny knew what was coming on this stage because we reconned it," Kreuziger said.
"He had it in his mind, so in the beginning we went for the points, which didn’t really cost us that much, but he had a difficult moment between 30 & 25 km to go. He lost some momentum, which is a pity, but now we will have to analyse whether holding onto the jersey is a possibility.
"We'll have to do some calculations, which will take some time, because planning the stages in detail for Lenny, but also keeping the team's main objective of winning a stage is something we need to work out."
Martinez lies 89th overall in the general classification after a challenging opening week to the Tour. The team's hopes for a high GC position with Santiago Buitrago have also gone up in smoke, with the Colombian lying 71st overall after crashing on stage 7.
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