Nicolas Roche points to his sponsors logos in reference to his Tinkoff-Saxo teammate Rafal Majka's victory on Pla d'Adet on stage 17 of this year's Tour de France.
With everything focussed on Alberto Contador winning this year’s Tour de France, Nicolas Roche’s Tinkoff-Saxo team had to come up with a whole new game plan when their Spanish leader crashed out with a broken tibia on stage 10.
Having used up most of their energy keeping the Spaniard safe and out of the wind in the first week of the Tour, the squad had nobody remotely close to the overall lead by then and had to go back to the drawing board for the rest of the Tour.
“There was nothing else for us to do but change plans,” admits Roche.
Advertisement
“We realised our only hope was to try and win a stage, so that’s what we focussed on doing.
“In the end, we got three stage wins and the polka dot jersey with Rafal (Majka) so I think we managed to turn things around and came out of this Tour pretty well.”
Although he went into the Tour with the sole intention to ride for Contador for the entire race and had no personal goals, Roche found himself in a couple of breakaways towards the end of the race.
He took the most combative rider award on stage 11 and was instrumental in teammate Rafal Majka’s second stage win atop Pla d’Adet on stage 17.
“The plan that day was to try and get Rafal in the break as we knew he was climbing very well.
"We also wanted to try and have somebody with him and I was the one that made it.
Roche on the pavé of stage 5; the day Froome crashed out and Nibali put big time into all of his main rivals (Photo: Stefano Sirotti)
Despite having done a lot of work on the previous climbs to keep the gap open to the peloton, Roche went clear in the final 8km, on the ascent of Pla d’Adet, with Italian Giovanni Visconti.
The Movistar rider however had more in reserve as they neared the summit and left Roche with 6km to go, prompting the question if he hadn’t ridden as much earlier on, could he have won the stage himself?
“As soon as we got into the group, I knew Rafal was the strongest climber there so it made more sense to me to ride for him than try and do something myself and maybe only come away with second or third,” says Roche.
“As it turned out, Nibali came from the peloton behind and caught the rest of us to finish second so maybe if I hadn’t ridden so hard on the other climbs we wouldn’t have stayed away and neither of us would have had a chance to win the stage.
“I did maybe think it was my day for a split second but that was only because of something that had happened the night before.
Related News
“The day that Michael Rogers won his stage and the day that Rafal won his first stage they had both taken their feed bags from Oleg (Tinkoff, team owner) and there was a bit of joking about who would be the lucky one to get the bag from Oleg the next day.
“As it happened, I missed my first attempt to grab the musette from our soigneur in the feed zone and the next person I saw was Oleg, so I took one off him.
“I didn’t really think about it again until I was up the road later on. For maybe a few seconds I thought that maybe it was fate or whatever but no, Rafal was the strongest there so it made absolute sense to ride for him.
“He rode for me throughout the Vuelta last year, so it was nice to be able to do something for him in return.”
Although Tinkoff-Saxo ended the Tour with three stage wins and the polka dot jersey of best climber, Roche has yet to realise his twin dreams of winning a stage and riding onto the Champs Elysees in the service of the yellow jersey.
“It’s still a dream of mine to ride into Paris on the same team as the yellow jersey,” admits Roche.
“I thought it was going to happen this year with Alberto, but that’s the thing about cycling and sport in general, there are always some unexpected twists.
“It’s been a lot different to the Tour we hoped for back in Yorkshire but I think the team stuck together and we turned it around.
“To come away with three stage wins and the mountains classification is better then we hoped for after stage 10.”
After a couple of days in Paris to recover from his Tour efforts, Roche will line up at the Classica San Sebastian in Spain on Saturday before a trip to Dublin for two charity events in a fortnight’s time.
His Bike V Beast race in Leopardstown Racecourse on August 12th is to raise funds for the Nicolas Roche Performance Team and features the Vuelta a Espana stage winner facing off against a horse ridden by top jockey Pat Smullen.
The Nicolas Roche Summer Classic in Dunshaughlin on August 14th features a family cycle as well as 60km and 100km routes and will benefit the Marie Keating Foundation.
There are still places available on both.
Topics
