Nicolas Roche in the climbers' jersey at the Vuelta; his best ever race as a pro where he time trialled with the best, took a stage win and finished in 5th overall. He rode in the same aggressive way as he had done in Grand Tours when he first burst onto the scene, underlining the adage that fortune favours the brave. The homepage photo is of Dan Martin winning Liege-Bastogne-Liege, his best result in a year that also included a Tour de France stage win and overall victory in the Volta a Catalunya, where he also took a mountain stage. Had his Tour and Vuelta not been sabotaged by illness and a crash respectively, he would likely have finished at least 4th in the WorldTour rankings. Despite his misfortune, he still ended the year 6th in the world.
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Daniel Martin has moved up in the official UCI rankings following his second place overall at the Tour of Beijing last month, finishing the season in a career-best 6th.
Nicolas Roche has finished 36th in the rankings, which was also a career best for him.
Martin and Roche are the only two Irish riders who competed for a ProTour team this year – for Garmin Sharp and Saxo-Tinkoff respectively – and are the only two who scored points in the WorldTour rankings.
However, despite many other nations have a much larger number of riders scoring points, Ireland finishing an excellent 10th place in the WorldTour nations’ rankings, putting us ahead of many heavy hitter cycling nations including the likes of Poland and Germany.
If Ireland had been in the top 10 by mid August – when places for the elite men’s race at the World Road Championships were allocated – we would have had a six-man team in the Worlds.
Roche and Martin will be joined in the top tier next year by Philip Deignan when he returns to that level as he transfers from Unitedhealthcare to Team Sky.
With an additional strong rider competing in the highest division, and with those three riders set to have a busy early season as they focus on the Giro d'Italia, it is likely they will amass enough points by mid August to qualify a six-man team for the Worlds instead of the four-man selection we had last month in Florence.
That fact would favour riders like Connor McConvey, Philip Lavery, Peter Hawkins, Sean Downey and a few others who would be in the mix to fill those extra places as Martin, Roche, Sam Bennett and Matt Brammeier have emerged as the four most favoured by Cycling Ireland selectors.
Martin was 8th in the WorldTour rider rankings going into Beijing, which was the last WorldTour race of the year. He finished 2nd on the queen stage and also 2nd overall and as a result jumped to 6th in the WorldTour.
The measure of his standing in the sport now is clear from an examination of the names of the five riders who finished ahead of him and indeed the quality just behind.
The WorldTour was won this year by Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha) on 607 points with long-time leader and Tour de France winner Chris Froome in 2nd on 587 points.
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Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) was 3rd on 540 points, with Peter Sagan (Cannondale) 4th on 419 points. Giro winner Vincenzo Nibali was 5th on 474 points, just ahead of Martin on 432 points.
Just after the Irishman comes Fabian Cancellara of Radioshack-Leopard (384 points). In 8th is arguably the best climber in the world Nairo Quintana of Movistar (352) and world champion Rui Costa of Movistar is in 9th (352). Richie Porte of Team Sky rounds out the top 10 on 327 points.
It was a remarkable performance by Martin considering he fell ill during the second half of the Tour de France after winning a fantastic stage and crashed out of the Vuelta so early in the race. His chances of a good ride at the World Championships were ended by a crash.
Had those strokes of bad luck not blighted his season, Martin would have most likely finished as high as 4th in the WorldTour this year and will likely get into the top 3 next season.
Martin may also trouble the podium in a Grand Tour next year or soon thereafter. And given his natural ability and his old school willingness to animate a race by bossing the action, it would be no surprise if he quickly went on a classic-winning spree that brought more than one monument victory per year in the next period of his career.
Nicolas Roche’s season was not punctuated with top results with the same frequency as his cousin Martin, but it was a massive season for him in his first year with Saxo-Tinkoff.
Roche took the step of relinquishing his team leader spot at Ag2r-La Mondiale 12 months ago in favour of joining Saxo-Tinkoff with an undisputed team leader in the shape of Alberto Contador and many other strong riders on the roster.
However, Roche believed he could improve working under team owner Bjarne Riis. He also believed despite having to sacrifice his chances in the Tour de France to work for Contador that he would get his chance in other races.
The early season did not go well as a combination of over training and gaining weight thanks to a new diet the team put him on took their toll. However, he rode hard during the Tour for Contador and by the time it was over he was in top shape.
He followed his Tour ride with 5th place in the San Sebastian Classic just after. But it was in the Vuelta a Espana that he really came into his own. With Contador not starting and Roman Kreuziger clearly well over the top after his 5th placed ride in the Tour, Roche seized his chance.
He took victory on stage 2 and the leader’s jersey on stage 8. He wore every classification leader’s jersey on his way to 5th overall. His time trialling also improved hugely during the year, taking a crucial 6th place in the 38.8km stage 11 in the Vuelta; a performance he would never have come close to before.
He later finished 13th in the time trial at the World Championships last month; a ride that underlined his Vuelta time trial was no fluke and pointed to the possibility of him bagging some serious results overall in shorter stage races featuring time trials next year.
But it was his aggressive ride in the Vuelta – tackling the racing as he had done when he rode his first couple of Grand Tours – that underlined his changed approach and brought him his best results ever with still plenty of time left at the top of the sport.
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