ON a day when he had to endure six categorised climbs and finished more than 21 minutes off the pace, Bathurst professional cyclist Mark Renshaw still had something to smile about as he crossed the finish line in stage nine of the Tour de France.

As Renshaw completed the 170 kilometre slog from Gerardmer to Mulhouse, his Omega Pharma-QuickStep team-mate Tony Martin was celebrating a bold stage win.

It was the second stage win for the team, who have rebounded well after the loss of lead sprinter Mark Cavendish on the opening day of competition.

Martin’s success, which also earned him the polka dot jersey as the leader of the king of the mountains classification, added to Matteo Trentin’s stage seven victory. QuickStep have a third-placing as well thanks to Renshaw’s efforts on the way to London.

Following Cavendish’s withdrawal, Renshaw has acted as the lead sprinter for QuickStep. It gives him a chance to pick up the first Tour de France stage win of his career given the team ventured to the world’s biggest cycling event with a strong group of riders.

It is a big turnaround in fortune after Renshaw missed out on last year’s tour due to injury and was forced to withdraw early in 2012 after a series of crashes.

“It’s really crazy, a cyclist’s career. Things can turn on their head pretty quick,” Renshaw said.

“I’ve seen both sides of the coin – the good and the bad of last year [as protected sprinter on the Belkin team], two years ago having a big crash in the Tour of Turkey.

“Now Cav is on the other side of the coin and is looking to come back. But that gives me an opportunity. I’ll take it with both hands and see what I come up with.”

But for stage nine the focus was not on sprinters, instead the medium mountain leg was once in which handy climbers could feature.

A group broke clear after just five kilometres, including three-time world time trial champion Martin. It was to prove decisive.

While Renshaw was unable to stick with the peloton and joined a group including sprint rival Marcel Kittel, Martin stayed strong.

In the opening week of the tour Renshaw had picked up points towards the green jersey at intermediate sprints, but this time around it was Martin who was first to cross under the banner at Linthal at kilometre 105.

No sprinters were able to add to their tally at this point, meaning Renshaw still sits in fifth position in the battle for the green jersey. He is 166 points behind current holder Peter Sagan from team Cannondale.

It was another Cannondale rider – Alessandro De Marchi – and Martin who were able to escape from their fellow breakaway riders and they stayed together to the foot of the category one Le Markstein climb.

It was here Martin soloed off the front and with a flatter 21km run to the finish line, he used his time trialling skills to stay clear and win in a time of four hours, nine minutes and 34 seconds. Runner-up Fabian Cancellara crossed the line two minutes, 45 seconds later while Renshaw was 21:38 behind his team-mate.

“I think there are not so many guys in cycling who can do it like this,” Martin said of his solo win. 

“But I have to do it this way because I am not a guy for the big attacks and playing games. When I have the space, when I have a gap, I know I can make a good race and go really fast. I can do an effort like that in more than a one hour time trial. I can put out this kind of effort in a three or four hour mountain stage. Today everything worked perfectly.”

An even tougher stage awaited Renshaw last night with the leg including seven categorised climbs and a summit finish.