Tour de France
July 16, 2009
While stage victories and allegations about racist taunts have pushed Martin's team mate Mark Cavendish into the media spotlight during this year's Tour, the 24-year-old German has quietly made himself the Columbia team's best-placed rider in the overall standings.
At the end of stage 11, the 192-kilometer ride between from Vatan to Saint Fargeau, Martin was ranked seventh overall, one minute behind Italian Rinaldo Nocentini in the leader's yellow jersey.
Martin has also has held the prize for the best placed rider under the age of 26 since the end of the third stage. He now hopes wear the Tour de France's white jersey all the way to Paris.
"It has always been a dream of mine to wear the white jersey," Martin told the AFP news agency.
"All I want to do now is keep it for as long as possible."
Martin, whose parents fled Hungary in 1989 after the fall of the Iron Curtain and settled in the former East German city of Cottbus, has spent the entire year so far concentrating on the Tour and is pleased with his progress.
The Columbia rider has been one of the best improved riders this season, winning the king of the mountains jerseys in both Paris-Nice and the Tour of Switzerland and performing well in time-trials.
The last German to wear the white jersey into Paris was Jan Ulrich. He completed the feat in 1998, one year after he won the yellow jersey in the world's most famous cycling race.
sje/av/AFP/Reuters/dpa
Editor: Chuck Penfold