Dan Martin to miss the Tour de France

Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp) has announced that he will miss the Tour de France which starts on 5 July in Yorkshire as he is not fully recovered from the broken collarbone he sustained on the Giro d'Italia's opening team time trial in Belfast on May 9. Last year Martin won the Tour's ninth stage into Bagnères-de-Bigorre.

"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.

Martin will race the Irish national championships this coming weekend and will line up at the Tour de Pologne from August 3-9 as he prepares for his fourth Vuelta a España appearance.

In 2011, Martin won stage 9 of the Spanish Grand Tour as he went on to finish 13th, which remains his best overall result at a three-week race.

"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 said of his new race schedule.

So far, Martin has completed just 19 days of racing having started his season later than normal at the Tirreno-Adriatico but is hoping that racing the Vuelta will be good preparation for the World Championship Ponferrada, Spain which has a parcours that suits his characteristics.