Roche will be looked to as one of the engines of the Ag2r Team TT effort in Valkenburg
By Graham Healy
Nicolas Roche will kick off Ireland’s World Championships campaign this Sunday when he lines up as part of Ag2r’s team for the team time trial world title race in Valkenburg, Holland.
The event – which gets a fantastic week of road racing underway – is a new addition to the Worlds, and will see some differences from the usual team time trials at Grand Tours.
Six riders per team will contest the event rather than the usual nine, and the teams’ times will be taken from the fourth cyclist to cross the line. With smaller numbers per team, it will leave less room to hide.
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The teams start in Sittard-Geleen and race 53 kilometres over three climbs, to finish after the Cauberg in Valkenburg. While the riders compete in this race with their trade teams, all of the road races involve riders competing for their national teams.
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Dan Martin has been named on the longlist of nine riders for the Garmin-Sharp team, and whatever their final line-up they will be expected to contest for the top spot.
Garmin will have to compete for the win with the likes of Movistar who won the recent TTT in the Vuelta, home-town favourites Rabobank, US-based Radioshack who have announced a strong line-up and other strong teams including Sky and Omega Pharma–Quick Step.
Matt Brammeier hasn’t been named as part of the Belgian squad’s shortlist.
Rather than the usual rainbow jersey, the winning team will be entitled to wear a distinctive logo on their jerseys for next year and this will extend to the whole squad and not just the six winning riders.
Roche and his team did a reconnaissance of the course today, Friday, but it would be a big ask for Ag2r to vie for a podium position. On the other hand, if Martin is selected for Garmin, we could see a good start to the week’s events from an Irish perspective.
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