Nicolas Roche is much thinner at the Vuelta than in this shot taken in the early season and is having the ride of his life in Spain. But how far can he go?
By Graham Healy
Prior to the start of this year’s Vuelta, Nicolas Roche had outlined that he was aiming for a top-5 finish overall. With over a week of the race completed, he is well on course to achieve his aim as he sits in third place overall. He has also taken a stage win so the race has already been a success.
However, the next twelve days of racing are going to be extremely challenging. The main talking point when the route of this year’s Vuelta was announced was the number of summit finishes, and there are still another six to come.
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But before the riders go back into the mountains they have tomorrow’s time trial to negotiate. The stage is the only individual race against the clock in the Vuelta and could offer one of Roche’s biggest challenges of the race.
It unfolds over 38 kilometres and features a category three climb halfway through. In previous Grand Tours, Roche has struggled in the race against the clock and lost time to many of his rivals. He has said previously he sometimes has trouble with his concentration in time trials.
However this year he has been working on improving this area, and in the Tour de France he posted one of his best performances to-date on the stage 11 test when he finished in 28th place, just over two and a half minutes behind winner Tony Martin.
Next weekend sees the race move back into the mountains with another three summit finishes in the Pyrenees, which should result in the overall standings really starting to take shape.
Already, a number of riders who could have expected to challenge for honours have struggled, with the Belkin duo of Bauke Mollema and Laurens Ten Dam - who rode so well in the Tour de France - already out of contention in Spain.
Great things were expected from the Colombian pair from Team Sky, Rigoberto Uran and Sergio Henao, but they have also lost more time than expected and won’t be on the top step of the podium in Madrid.
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Igor Anton and Samuel Sanchez of Euskaltel have also lost a lot of time and are out of contention.
Unfortunately, another of those who was hoping for a good GC-placing was our own Daniel Martin who had to withdraw last week after crashing hard. It was a bitter blow for a man looking poised to take stage wins, challenge overall and make a play for the World title later this month. That latter objective has not been completely derailed.
One of the important things that has emerged over the past few days is that Roche will now have the full support of the Saxo-Tinkoff team as team leader.
Prior to the race, the team announced they would start with Roman Kreuziger as leader, with Roche, Rafal Majka and Chris Anker Sorensen also aiming for good overall finishes and being supported. However, Sorensen, Kreuziger and Majka have all lost time and they will now be concentrating their efforts on helping Roche.
So at this stage, among the main riders still in contention for overall honours is the surprise leader, Chris Horner of Radioshack. The American has already broken the record for becoming the oldest stage winner in Grand Tour history. It would be an unbelievable achievement for him if he was to win overall and would also give rise to doubts in some quarters.
Vincenzo Nibali of Astana, who has the experience required to win a Grand Tour, is probably the favourite at this point. But Alejandro Valverde, Joaquin Rodriguez, Daniel Moreno and Ivan Basso are all riding well and have lost little time to Horner.
Towards the end of the last week, the riders will face the final three summit finishes, with the dreaded Alto de L’Angliru the final climb of the race on the penultimate day. It may very well come down to this climb to determine who the overall winner will be.
And if Roche continues as he has started, then there’s no reason why he can’t be amongst the contenders on the Angliru, contend for another stage win before then and also win the climbers' title; his form is good enough.
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