Tour du Poitou-Charentes: Tony Martin wins the overall, Trentin claims final stage

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The Tour du Poitou-Charentes will be Tony Martin's first stage race overall victory of the 2015 season – and probably the last one since his pre-World’s schedule from now on only includes one-day races [GP Plouay on Sunday, GP Fourmies, GP Québec and GP Montreal].

Etixx-QuickStep kept the race under control for the German after he took over through the individual time trial. Martin himself gave an excellent lead out to Matteo Trentin, who claimed his second victory of the week in Poitiers ahead of local favourite Bryan Coquard of Europcar.

"Winning the Tour du Poitou-Charentes means a lot to me," Martin said. "My crash at the Tour de France wasn’t that far away so I wasn’t sure of my condition, but I end up with the victory. It’s perfect for my motivation for the World’s. I’m super happy now. I’m also thankful to the team. They supported me really well.

"We had a great day on this last stage. We had a great week here actually. If you just look at the names, we came here with a really strong team. We wanted to win at least one stage. We won two plus the best young rider’s jersey [with Petr Vakoc], the green jersey [with Trentin] and the overall. It’s perfect. It shows we are in a real good condition for the world championship for team time trial."

Etixx-QuickStep maintained the gap under four minutes to the six leaders, Alexandre Blain (Team Marseille 13-KTM), Thomas Boudat (Europcar), Clément Venturini (Cofidis), Frédéric Brun (Bretagne-Séché Environnement), Romain Combaud (Armée de Terre) and Ludwig De Winter (Wallonie-Bruxelles). The last two of them got caught with 5km to go.

Angelo Tulik (Europcar) tried his luck. The last Frenchman to believe that a bunch sprint was avoidable was 21-year-old Anthony Turgis (Cofidis), but he got reined in in the last kilometre of racing. Two days after taking his first victory of the year in La Crèche, Trentin doubled up.

"The first victory gave me the answers I was looking for," Trentin told Cyclingnews. "Yesterday morning, the bad luck has played against me because I was going to sprint for a second victory and I got a puncture with 1km to go. Today I was going well. The team’s first goal was to defend the leader’s jersey. We’ve remained at the front all day. I was supposed to sprint in case we’d have some energy left. I’m very happy because today’s victory is the confirmation I was looking for. It was the hardest stage of the whole Tour and we’ve been the strongest team in the finale.

"From the last climb onwards, Coquard clearly indicated that he wanted to sprint," Trentin continued. "I think he made this particular stage his main goal of the week. My next race will be World Tour race GP Plouay on Sunday. I don’t know what I can do there because it hasn’t been a walk in the park here. I’ll be somehow tired. It’s a long race. So far I haven’t been able to do well in Plouay but I hope it’ll be different this time."

Movistar’s Adriano Malori and Jonathan Castroviejo accompanied Martin on stage for the award of the top 3 riders overall. Etixx-QuickStep won the Tour du Poitou-Charentes by taking advantage of the subtle terrain and the echelons more than the individual time trial.

Results

Final General Classification

Points Classification

Mountains Classification

Best Young Rider Classification