"I didn’t come here to win stages" but Lenny Martínez holds off Pogacar and Vingegaard to win final Dauphiné day

Lenny Martínez had been disappointed not be able to contest the overall classification properly at the Criterium du Dauphiné but today the Frenchman showed once again that when it comes to the mountainous terrain, he is one of the best in the world and was the only one to be able to hold off Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard.

“I really didn’t feel good yesterday, but today I felt pretty good. I really didn’t expect that beforehand, but the team told me to keep believing," Martínez said in a post-race interview on a day where he was part of the breakaway. “It was a logical choice for Mathieu van der Poel to attack early and the peloton took it a bit easier".

The elite group never had a massive gap, but steadily kept it before the final climb much due to the work of Movistar. But when it came to the final climb, Martínez was able to follow Enric Mas' attack.

Despite the very fast and aggressive finale in the GC group, Martínez managed to perform stupendously, dropping all of his rivals and then going for a solo win as the sole survivor of the breakaway. “I was quite afraid of the GC riders because of that. In the last kilometers I was a bit calmer and I believed I could win,” the youngster added.

“I didn’t come here to win stages, but to ride for the best possible classification. That didn’t work out, but I’m very satisfied now. In the Tour I will try to win a stage and go for the best possible classification," he concluded.