10-07-2009 07:12:54

When Tony Martin was growing up in Germany, he would turn on his television to watch Jan Ullrich compete in the Tour de France.
Like millions of people in his country, he would remain glued to the Tour broadcasts, during which Ullrich and Lance Armstrong often went head-to-head. Their rivalry was one of the biggest in recent Tour history.

“I always wanted to get to that point and race in the Tour de France because Jan Ullrich was a real superstar; he was my favorite rider,” Martin said Wednesday, before Stage 5 of the Tour. “But then it came out that he was cheating, and I realized that many riders were doping. It was so disappointing. It made me ask myself, is this the sport I really want to go into?”

Martin, 24, decided to get into the sport and stuck with it. So far, that choice has worked out for him.

Competing in his first Tour, in his second season with the Columbia-HTC team, Martin was in second place after the third stage. He is now in eighth place, just 52 seconds back, after Wednesday’s stage, a 122-mile, or 196.5-kilometer, ride that began in Le Cap d’Agde, a seaside resort known for its nude sunbathing.

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NY Times