Having crashed out of the Giro d'Italia with a broken collarbone, Daniel Martin has confirmed that he will skip the Tour de France. Instead, he will use the Tour of Austria and the Tour de Pologne to prepare for the Vuelta a Espana and the World Championships.

With a start in Northern Ireland, the Giro d'Italia was the big objective for Daniel Martin in the first part of the season but the Irishman barely got his race started before a crash in the team time trial left him with a broken collarbone. Since then he has been recovering from his injuries and is now back in training and there has been a lot of speculation about his race schedule.

Now Martin confirms that he will skip the Tour de France to focus fully on the second part of the season. The Irishman who won a stage in the Pyrenees 12 months ago before falling ill in the final week, prefers to ride himself into better condition before he takes on his next grand tour.

“For me, I prefer to be 100 percent ready for the next Grand Tour I do. I wasn’t ready in time to do the Tour de Suisse, so I wouldn’t have had a big race before the Tour,” Martin told the Irish Times yesterday.

“I think I am quite fit now but I am not anywhere near good enough to be contesting stages or whatever at the Tour. It is better just to refocus and rather than rush into something, really give myself time to prepare properly for the Vuelta.”

Martin will ride the Irish national road race championships on Sunday, then compete in the Tour of Austria and Tour of Poland prior to the start of the Vuelta a España in Jerez de la Frontera on August 23rd.

He last did the Vuelta in 2013 when he crashed out in the early part of the race. In 2011 he won a stage and finished 13th overall, his best ever result in a grand tour.

In addition to going for results, Martin will use the Spanish race to prepare for the Worlds in Ponferrada and Il Lombardia where he has done well several times in the past.