Dan Martin’s Garmin Sharp team confirmed last night that a day he had hoped would be one of the best in his career had ended with their rider breaking his collarbone.

"It's a broken clavicle for Dan," team spokesperson Marya Pongrace told The Irish Times. "We don't know about any other injuries yet – he's still at the hospital. He was transferred immediately there after his crash. Koldo Fernandez also went to hospital and is being evaluated, but was taken there after he finished."

Martin's crash came when his front wheel slipped sideways on what appeared to be a slick manhole cover, a little over halfway through the 21.7-kilometre team time trial in Belfast. He went down heavily, with three other Garmin Sharp riders also falling like skittles. They were able to remount, albeit slowly and gingerly, but Martin was left on the road clutching his collarbone, his race at an end.

Professional cycling is a sport where crashes are relatively common, although these falls don’t always translate into race-ending injuries. Martin crashed in the recent Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but was able to get back on his bike, finishing the race. On that occasion, the biggest damage was to his chances of taking a second straight title in the Classic.

Yesterday was a bigger blow, with the Giro d'Italia in Ireland ending almost before it started. He knows that he was in the kind of shape to chase a stage win and possibly a top-three finish overall; he also realises that the Giro will likely never start again in Ireland during his career.

However, all Martin can do is to heal up as well and as soon as possible, and to set new targets; providing things go to plan, he could well return to training in a matter of weeks and compete in July’s Tour de France. The Vuelta a España could also be on the cards, and so he could have plenty of racing left this season. Still, the sting will be hard to accept in the days ahead.

His first cousin, Nicolas Roche, said that the fall was a big blow for both Martin and also Irish fans. "I didn't see the crash, I was outside on the rollers when it happened. Straight away some guys who were watching told me 'catastrophe, Dan crashed'. I had a look on Twitter to get confirmation. There were a lot of tweets about Dan's crash," he said.

'Super unfortunate'
"It is super unfortunate. That is twice in two races . . . it is just super unlucky and I feel so sorry for him and feel bad about it. I think Dan was expecting a lot today and from this Giro. He has been spending a lot of time to be ready and set for this race. It just hasn't paid him back. It is a big pity."

Roche said that he was satisfied with how his own day had gone; his Tinkoff Saxo team finished a fine fourth out of 22 squads in the test, putting him a solid 27th overall, 23 seconds off the first race leader Svein Tuft (Orica GreenEdge). Fellow Irishman Philip Deignan is a further 12 seconds back, with his 32nd place overall earned via Team Sky's fifth place against the clock.

“The team did a great job today. On paper we definitely didn’t have a specialist team,” Roche said. “Two riders today did their first team time trial in the pro ranks, so we had a pretty inexperienced team. We rode the course one time this morning and it was a bit messy; we had a good debrief, the guys reacted really well.

“It was good – we had these guys who are super motivated and ready to give 100 percent . . . they listened, they reacted, and we stuck together as a team. It was great and exciting.”

Roche said prior to the start that his team of all rounders would likely not match the pure team time trial talents of a squad like Orica GreenEdge. That proved to be the case, but he was pleased with the outcome and what it means for the overall standings at this early point.

“Today we were not the favourites, but everyone gave 100 per cent. It was very nice to get a result, to start on a good note.

"Yesterday I said losing a minute would be a lot but if we limited it to 30 seconds, it would be brilliant," he continued. "We are actually just 23 seconds behind the best team, so it was even better than I hoped."

Gained time
Significantly, the team gained time over many of the other general classification contenders; for example, Nairo Quintana's Movistar team conceded 22 seconds to Roche's squad, while Martin's team-mate Ryder Hesjedal, the 2012 race winner, is now over three minutes back.

There’s a lot more racing to go, of course, but both Roche and Deignan can be satisfied with the opening stage. The former said that not losing any time was his priority in the remaining two stages in Ireland, today’s race to Belfast and tomorrow’s southward-bound leg to Dublin.

He said that he’s likely to ride conservatively. “You never know how a race goes, there could be crosswinds and riders all over the place tomorrow so maybe you have to attack,” he said.

“But there is no plan to do a television attack just to get attention. It’s important to save as much energy as possible for the mountains.”