He is the reigning time trial world champion, and has won every non-prologue ITT he’s lined up for in 2013. Therefore, Tony Martin’s stage win in today’s 33 km stage from Avranches to Mont Saint-Michel isn’t surprising. In fact, it was expected by many.

But for the stage winner himself, it certainly wasn’t business as usual. Having started early and beaten Svein Tuft’s leading time, he was sat in the provisional leader’s ‘hot seat’ for several hours, watching as time and again, the other riders failed to beat his time – and he was relatively sure his time would stand at the end.

Only when the last man to start, overall race leader Chris Froome, went one second faster than Martin at the first checkpoint, did the German lose his faith: “To be honest, I had given up hope of the stage win. I was very disappointed when I saw Chris [Froome] beat my intermediate times.”

At the second time check, Froome was two seconds ahead, and Martin was looking more and more doubtful: “I was close to tears, I couldn’t believe it. I had been rather sure I would win, having such an advantage on riders like Chavanel and Kwiatkowski, both good timetriallers; therefore I expected Froome to be some 30 seconds back.”

But at the finish, Froome was 12 seconds slower, possibly being satisfied with winning valuable time on his GC rivals. Tony Martin was overjoyed: “It’s an incredible feeling. I had set out to do a good time trial, but before the stage I didn’t think I would be good enough to beat Chris Froome. With my injuries from the first stage in mind, this victory is even more precious.”

“When I heard that I could continue the Tour de France, I already knew I wouldn’t be at 100 percent for the team time trial [on stage 4], but I always expected to do well today, and I’m really happy now that I’ve won. All things considered I had a bit of luck, but I think I’ve deserved that. To me, this victory means just as much as my first world title or my first Tour stage win.”