Cycling: “Pogacar, Vingegaard, they are the ones I look at”, Lenny Martinez is inspired by the best

Follow in the footsteps of Pogacar and Vingegaard, the rider of the Groupama FDJ team, Lenny Martinez in a dream. Four victories, a second place behind Jonas Vingegaard at the Gran Camino, a seventh place at the Tour of Catalonia: the pocket climber (1.68 m, 52 kg) makes, at 20 years old, a start to the season - only his second at the level professional - beyond his own expectations.

“I didn't expect to score that much. This winter, the data was good but I didn't feel above the rest in training. But as soon as I started the first races I saw that it responded well,” he explains in an interview with AFP. “Obviously, when we are doing well, we set ourselves slightly higher goals. The idea was to make Top 10 in Catalonia, Top 10 in Romandie, Top 10 on a grand Tour. I tell myself that I can perhaps do a little better,” he adds on the eve of the Tour de Romandie where he will take his team alongside David Gaudu.

“In a career it’s a goal. But for the moment I don't have the level yet to win races like the Tour of Catalonia. It’s Grand Tour winners who win them (Pogacar this year, Editor’s note), so it’s quite complicated.” declared the French runner.

He still feels “far away” from riders like Vingegaard, whom he was able to resist on a stage at the Gran Camino “but I know that on the Tour de France it would not be the same thing”. “Vingegaard, Pogacar, they are really inspiring. They are the ones I look at. They motivate me to try to get closer,” says Martinez, who also works on the time trial, an essential exercise for general classification runners and which he likes because it “looks a bit like the effort of 'a climber, linear in a pass'.