After a 2025 he’d prefer to forget, Grand Tour contender and stage racing specialist Dani Martínez had few chances to show his full potential last year, but the 30-year-old Colombian has said he’s determined to set the record straight in 2026.
Even before the arrival of Remco Evenepoel in his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team this winter, in a squad already packed with GC stars like Primož Roglič, Florian Lipowitz, Jai Hindley and a fast-rising Giulio Pellizzari, following his disappointing 2025, to some fans Martínez was already in danger of disappearing from the radar.
But before starting his first stage race of 2026 at the Volta ao Algarve, and with a runner’s up spot in the time trial at the Colombian National Championships and a ninth place in the Figueira Champions Classics already under his belt, the 2024 Giro d’Italia runner-up is itching to get back into the thick of the action. In an interview with El Tiempo, Martínez made no secret of his goal, either, to “move back up some places” in what he views as the team’s unofficial hierarchy.
“Gaining a spot [in the Grand Tours’ will be complicated,” Martínez said when asked if he was aware he’d dropped down what the newspaper called puestos – which translates roughly as ‘positions on the ladder’ – “but the goals of the team are clear.”
Regarding the arrival of Evenepoel in the team – and speaking before the Belgian’s setback in stage 3 of the UAE, he argued, “everybody knows who he is. He’s shown his potential and he’s been the star rider of the start of the season. It’s clear he’s here to win.”
A former winner of the Volta ao Algarve back in 2023, as well as two stages of the same race in 2024, Martínez put his poor 2025 – in which he finished 53rd in the Giro and with seventh in Liège-Bastogne-Liège as his one stand-out result – mainly down to allergies and illnesses striking at the wrong time.
Confirming that he hopes to turn back the clock to his best Grand Tour season of 2024 when only a…
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