Martin ready for final push

CYCLING:DANIEL MARTIN will tomorrow aim for success in his main end-of-season goal, the Tour of Lombardy in Northern Italy. The 24-year-old was an excellent second in last Sunday's Giro dell'Emilia and said this week that he is looking forward to riding the final Classic of the season.

“I love these races in Italy and there has been a great atmosphere this week with the team,” he said, referring to his Garmin Transitions squad. “Everybody is super-motivated as I obviously showed that we might have a chance on Saturday.”

Martin hasn’t raced much since winning a stage plus the overall classification in the Tour of Poland in August, as well as the Tre Valli Varesine. He passed up the chance to ride the world championships in order to bank everything on being ready for tomorrow’s race, and the strength he showed last weekend shows he could be in the running.

“The team is focused as they know they have someone strong on the team. That is a really nice feeling. Hopefully that is going to be repaid.”

Last year’s winner Philippe Gilbert showed he has retained his superb world championship form when he triumphed in the final preparation event yesterday, the Giro del Piemonte.

Martin rode part of the race as warm-up, but didn’t finish. He indicated afterwards there were no problems, and that he was simply using the race to loosen up.

Gilbert is a very explosive rider and is strong on short, steep climbs. For Martin and the others, the best chance to shake him off may come on the Ghisallo climb plus the new Colma di Sormano ascent, although the latter peaks 41 kilometres from the finish and may provide enough time for a regrouping.

The final battle will be fought on the steep San Fermo di Battaglia, where Gilbert launched his winning attack last year.

Meanwhile, Nicolas Roche has said that he is glad to have a chance to take a break from racing after a long season, and that he hopes to be able to continue his improvement next year.

“It’s been a good year with a lot of results,” he said. “I’m worn out now and probably should have stopped after the Vuelta (Tour of Spain), but said I’d do the world championships. The plan now is to take things easy for a while.”

FIXTURES – Saturday: Supercross Cup round 2, Tymon Park. Starts noon.