He won Stage 6 and was getting top 10's for most other stages (11th on Stage 1 and 54th on Stage 4 being the notable exceptions), and was inside 3% (2.8%) of Martin's overall time when the clocks stopped.
I think it might be the classic Sam Hill effect that we saw with Downhill; he storms onto the scene and everyone had to "git gud" just to be competitive with what he was doing. I don't think we're seeing Sam off the pace (not significantly at least) I think it's more everyone else has been working their absolute asses off to bring the competition to a level he's racing.
Martin has always been wickedly fast, but he has also not had an entirely clean season since 2015. It's invariably crashes that mar his amazing performance. His Stage 6 drop in Columbia last year was savage, as was his hand injury at Finale. He had DNF's to injury in France and Canada in 2017, and then of course is his 2016 Fort William crash.
@hifiandmtb That silent heckle is awesome!
