"Thanks to Nairo Quintana who gave me some gels" - Daniel Martinez relies on support on compatriot with BORA - hansgrohe teammates dropped on stage 17 of Giro d'Italia

Stage 17 of the Giro d'Italia 2024 ended with a win for Georg Steinhauser from the breakaway. However, on the final ascent to the Passo Brocon there was much to comment on regarding the fight for the Top 10 in the GC and especially in the fight between Daniel Martinez and Geraint Thomas for 2nd behind Tadej Pogacar.

Post-stage, Martinez revealed how he was thankful for the help of compatriot Nairo Quintana on the final climb after all his BORA - hansgrohe teammates were dropped. The Movistar Team star offered his countryman some gels when Martinez was running out of gas and whilst the INEOS Grenadiers were starting to try and take control of the stage."Today I went out with the mentality of whether I could make a difference. On the previous pass I was a little lonely, but thanks to Nairo who gave me some gels because I was already without anything," Martinez explains.

On the final climb, it was Martinez who attacked first in the Maglia Rosa group. However, Pogacar easily matched and then accelerated past him, with the Slovenian finishing second behind Steinhauser and gaining more time overall. Behind the runaway winner, Martinez and a small group of rivals, including Thomas, Einer Rubio, Antonio Tiberi and Romain Bardet, were able to cross the finish line alongside each other.

"At the end, when I saw that INEOS was trying to control the race and that the gap was increasing, I thought at one point that maybe they wanted to set a pace so that no one would attack," recalls the former INEOS man of the final climb. "When I heard that Ben O'Connor was struggling and Geraint Thomas only had Thymen Arensman left, I decided to try something and see how it went. But hey, we gave it a go, and now to think about Saturday."

On Saturday, the Giro d'Italia will face its penultimate stage and the final fight between the overall riders. Daniel Martinez's mind is already focused there, as he confirms to conclude his statements of the day. It will be a very hard day, with perhaps the hardest final climb of the entire Corsa Rosa: "There we will have a pretty hard climb, I think the hardest of all this Giro. So we remain concentrated and focused on what we want".