Tony Martin and his team following his stage 4 win. (Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Seeing riders' displays of emotion as they cross the line for a victory is something we're all accustomed to. What we don't see so much of, however, are the reactions of the the staff that work behind the scenes.
The Etixx-QuickStep set-up had good reason to indulge in a spot of particularly wild celebration on Tuesday when Tony Martin won stage 4 of the Tour de France thanks to a daring late attack. Martin and the team had tantalisingly missed out on the yellow jersey by slim margins on each of the first three days and it looked like the opportunity might have irrevocably slipped when he had a mechanical in the latter phases of the long cobbled stage.
But while the remaining fasten plotted their sprints, the German took them by surprise with an attack with less than 3.5 kilometres remaining. It was a huge effort to open a gap, a feat made even more remarkable by the fact he did so on the bike of teammate Matteo Trentin.
This video from the Etixx-QuickStep team shows the excitement in the team cars behind and on their bus when Martin made his move, and the elation when they found out he'd pulled it off.
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