Paul Martens

Paul Martens (born 26 October 1983) is a German former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2006 and 2021 for the and  teams. Martens achieved seven victories during his professional career, including a stage win and a general classification win at the Tour de Luxembourg, and stage wins at the Volta ao Algarve, the Vuelta a Burgos and the Tour of Belgium.

Amateur years
Martens started racing junior level events in 2000 showing no particular specialization finishing in the middle of the pack in the Niedersachsen Juniors and Cottbuser Juniors races. In 2001 he started to show some form finishing 3rd in Stage 1 of the Trofeo Karlsberg beating the chasing peloton by 2 seconds. Later in the year he finished 10th overall at the Münsterland Tour Juniors, a race he would win the senior version of later in his career. In 2002 he rode the Jadranska Magistrala finishing 56th overall with his best result coming in the stage 3 sprint where he finished 16th. In late May 2002 he rode the Tour de Berlin where he finished 13th overall but was the first rider born in 1983 or later so he won the young rider classification.

He started 2003 with a win in the Rund um Sebnitz in Germany, and he also took a podium placing on Stage 1 of the Tour de Berlin. 2004 saw Martens finish second at the under-23 German National Time Trial Championships, and finished 13th in both the European and World under-23 time trials later in the season. Martens signed for amateur team KED Bianchi Team Berlin for the 2005 season, this gave him a calendar with more UCI races over the year. He started the year with a win at the Harzrundfahrt national event, followed by 5th in the Stage 1 sprint of Circuit des Ardennes and a win at the Under-23 German National Time Trial Championships. For the later part of the 2005 season he was a stagiaire at UCI ProTeam.

Skil–Shimano (2006–2007)
In November 2005 announced they had signed Martens to their team on a two-year contract.

2006
Martens' professional career began in Qatar with the International Grand Prix Doha where he finished in second-to-last position, nearly 4' 30" down on the winner. Having acted as a domestique in his next starts in stage races, Martens moved onto the Cobbled classics and Ardennes classics. Martens contested, for the only time in his career, the Tour of Flanders and Paris–Roubaix, finishing just the latter and at almost 20 minutes down in 99th position. He recorded two top-10 stage finishes at April's Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt, followed by a top 10 in Stage 4 of Tour de Picardie the following month. The Tour de Luxembourg brought Martens' first professional win, winning Stage 3 ahead of eventual overall winner Christian Vande Velde. Martens' second professional win came at the Münsterland Giro where he took the early breakaway and held the peloton off by two seconds.

2007
Martens started 2007 at the Vuelta a Andalucía where he finished 6th in the bunch sprint of stage 2 and ended 21st overall after the 5 stages. He failed to finish at Omloop Het Volk and the Nokere Koerse, but finished third at the Grand Prix Rudy Dhaenens. The first top-10 result in a stage race came at the final edition of Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt where Martens finished 4th in Stage 3 and then 2nd in Stage 4 to finish 5th overall, 16 seconds down on the winner. At the Tour de Luxembourg in June, Martens finished in the top-10 in 3 stages and ultimately finished 4th overall, 25 seconds down on the winner. Stage 3 of the Ster Elektrotoer was won by Martens from a reduced bunch sprint after a hilly battle on the Cauberg, which earned him the race leader's jersey; he lost the race lead to Sebastian Langeveld on the final day and finished second overall. In August he raced the Rund um die Hainleite where he came third in another reduced bunch sprint. His last major result came at the Eneco Tour where he finished 9th overall.

Rabobank (2008–2021)
In October 2007, Martens announced he would ride for UCI ProTeam from 2008 on an initial two-year contract, saying his three professional wins in two years at Skil–Shimano were impressive.

2008–2009
In his first season with the team, Martens took top-ten overall finishes at the Ster Elektrotoer (sixth), the Regio-Tour (sixth) and the Sachsen Tour (eighth), and he finished in tenth at the Coppa Sabatini one-day race. The following year, he finished on the podium at the GP Ouest-France – held as part of the UCI ProTour – where he finished third behind Simon Gerrans and Pierrick Fédrigo. He also recorded top-ten results at the Eschborn–Frankfurt City Loop (fifth), the Giro del Piemonte (sixth), and a repeat of his eighth-place overall finish from the previous year, at the Sachsen Tour.

2010s
He recorded his first victory with in 2010, winning the Grand Prix de Wallonie, ahead of Riccardo Riccò and Cadel Evans. He also recorded fourth-place finishes at Brabantse Pijl, Paris–Brussels and the Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli, while also finishing in the top-ten placings at the Grote Prijs Jef Scherens (sixth), and the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen (eighth). In 2011, Martens recorded tenth-place finishes in two of the Ardennes classics – at the Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne. At the 2012 Vuelta a Burgos, Martens took a stage victory on the penultimate day of the race, winning on an uphill finish at Clunia.

On his first race day of the 2013 season, Martens won the opening stage of the Volta ao Algarve into Albufeira; he and Tiago Machado had gone clear of the field within the closing stages, and they managed to remain clear while teammate Theo Bos led home the peloton in third place, a few metres behind. Later in the spring, he finished third in the Volta Limburg Classic in a sprint finish of a select group of riders. In June, Martens took his first overall stage race success, by winning the general classification at the Tour de Luxembourg; he was third overall heading into final stage, but was able to overhaul Jonathan Hivert and Matthias Brändle on the hilly finishing circuit in Luxembourg City, and took the overall victory by four seconds ahead of Hivert. He later took top-ten overall finishes at the Tour de Wallonie (ninth) and the Arctic Race of Norway (fifth).

In June 2014, Martens won the final, hilly stage of the Tour of Belgium in a sprint finish in Oreye. He then finished second to Mathieu van der Poel at the Ronde van Limburg, and fourth overall at the Ster ZLM Toer in his next two starts. Martens made his Tour de France début in 2015, but he took no further individual wins over the next few years, with his best result coming at the 2017 Volta Limburg Classic, where he finished in fifth place, behind the lead group.

2020–2021
In February 2020, Martens announced that he would retire from cycling at the end of the season; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Martens intended to prolong his career until the middle of the 2021 season. He retired following the 2021 Giro d'Italia, where he finished 99th.

Major results
Sources:


 * 2001
 * 1st Madison (with Florian Piper), National Junior Track Championships
 * 10th Overall Münsterland Tour Juniors


 * 2002
 * 1st Young rider classification, Tour de Berlin


 * 2003
 * 1st Rund um Sebnitz


 * 2004
 * 2nd Time trial, National Under-23 Road Championships


 * 2005
 * 1st Time trial, National Under-23 Road Championships
 * 1st Harzrundfahrt


 * 2006
 * 1st Münsterland Giro
 * 1st Stage 2 Tour de Luxembourg


 * 2007
 * 2nd Overall Ster Elektrotoer
 * 1st Stage 2
 * 3rd Rund um die Hainleite
 * 3rd Grand Prix Rudy Dhaenens
 * 4th Overall Tour de Luxembourg
 * 5th Overall Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt
 * 9th Overall Eneco Tour


 * 2008
 * 6th Overall Ster Elektrotoer
 * 6th Overall Regio-Tour
 * 8th Overall Sachsen Tour
 * 10th Coppa Sabatini


 * 2009
 * 3rd GP Ouest-France
 * 5th Eschborn–Frankfurt City Loop
 * 6th Giro del Piemonte
 * 8th Overall Sachsen Tour


 * 2010
 * 1st Grand Prix de Wallonie
 * 4th Brabantse Pijl
 * 4th Paris–Brussels
 * 4th Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli
 * 6th Grote Prijs Jef Scherens
 * 8th E3 Prijs Vlaanderen


 * 2011
 * 10th Amstel Gold Race
 * 10th La Flèche Wallonne


 * 2012
 * 1st Stage 4 Vuelta a Burgos


 * 2013
 * 1st Overall Tour de Luxembourg
 * 1st Stage 1 Volta ao Algarve
 * 3rd Volta Limburg Classic
 * 5th Overall Arctic Race of Norway
 * 9th Overall Tour de Wallonie


 * 2014
 * 1st Stage 5 Tour of Belgium
 * 2nd Ronde van Limburg
 * 4th Overall Ster ZLM Toer


 * 2015
 * 10th Overall Tour du Poitou-Charentes


 * 2017
 * 5th Volta Limburg Classic
 * 10th Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race


 * 2019
 * 1st Stage 1 (TTT) UAE Tour