Dan Martin gives all in gruelling contest that gave no quarter

Dan Martin is leaning over his bike, looking battered and bruised and not far off death. And he's one of the lucky ones. If any event proves beyond even unreasonable doubt that nothing comes easy at these Olympics it's the cycling road race.

“Probably one of the hardest days I’ve ever had on a bike,” he says, which for a rider of Martin’s experience, is quite terrifying. “I’ve just got nothing left. Even my hands were cramping up completely at the end, and I could just about hold on to the handlebar.”

There is ample evidence of this: his Irish jersey is heavily stained by the dried salt of his own sweat, his face splattered with the last fossils of his own spit. He’s the legs of an old man’s corpse, veins protruding and seemingly drained of all blood. And he’s not alone.

Spectacularly cruel

It’s Saturday evening down on

Copacabana

and by finishing 13th and equalling Ireland’s best ever result – Ciarán Power in Athens 2004 – Martin should have some reason to be satisfied, only he’s not showing it: after 237.5km around

Rio de Janeiro

on a course that chewed up and spat out so many of the riders, he’s in no mood for much celebration.

Even with his experience – 11 Grand Tours, and only last month, ninth place in the Tour de France – this was more spectacularly cruel and savage than any other bike race in Olympic history. That he'd just rode to such utter exhaustion in a quest to win a medal also lasting proof of his commitment to the Irish cycling jersey. Likewise with team-mate Nicolas Roche, who also rode his heart and lungs out to finish 29th.

For Martin, there’s no regret and certainly no envy, only genuine disappointment he hadn’t pulled off the medal he’d hoped for.

“But we’re gutted, really, not to have won a medal, because that’s the ambition we came here with. And I think it shows how far Ireland has come as a cycling country that we’re disappointed with 13th place. To come to the Olympics aiming and believing we could medal just shows that ambition. We had a dream ride in, but just didn’t have quite enough on the day. That was the plan, to just completely empty the tank, and that’s what I did.”

Indeed after six hours, 10 minutes and five seconds, Greg Van Avermaet from Belgium also has just enough energy left to raise his arms in victory. Martin, finishing just under three minutes behind, saw his hopes for a medal eventually disappear on the third and final ascent of the Vista Chinesa, which came after four climbs of the equally brutal Grumari Circuit.

Left on the road behind him were several moments of carnage, physical or else mental, including a crash which took out race leaders Vincenzo Nibali from Italy and Colombia's Sergio Henao on the final descent, with just over 10km remaining. Van Avermaet then managed to close down on Rafal Majka from Poland, who ended up third, with Jakob Fuglsang from Denmark also coming through to take silver.

Martin actually had the exact same time as Britain's Tour de France winner Chris Froome (given 12th place in the photo), and although there's nothing whatsoever he would or could have done differently, Martin suggests the lack of race information on the course meant he wasn't entirely sure if he was still challenging for a medal or not – and also suggests the course was "quite dangerous", as those late crashes prove.

‘Super hot’

“It was super, super hot,” he adds, “and I’m not making complaints, but being a small country, we don’t get as many accreditations as some of the bigger ones, so we had less people doing bottles. And that makes it more difficult to get water. Just to have two riders was a bit of a disadvantage, but that’s just the way it is.

“And we were so flat out it wasn’t really a race. Everyone just tried to get to the top of the climbs, then looked at where they were. We’re not really racing, just going as hard as I can. We got zero information out there as well. I had no idea if there were 50 guys ahead of me or five guys. I didn’t know if I was going for a medal. I had no idea at all. And I think that was the same for everyone. But for me I rode the perfect race, I just lacked that little bit on the last climb.”

Martin’s Olympics aren’t quite over yet, as he’ll be inside the Olympic Stadium next week to support his fiancé Jessica Andrews, who is running in the 10,000m for Great Britain. He may, by then, have some life back in his hands and legs.