Roche has ridden his last race for Ag2r and is looking forward to next season
By Brian Canty
Nicolas Roche has spoken about his frustrations from the 2012 season when he failed to win a race having gone close on several occasions.
To the now former Ag2r La Mondiale rider, the near miss on the ninth Vuelta stage to Montjuic is the one he regrets most.
But he also spoke about his disgust at having been overhauled within sight of the line on the 18th stage of the Tour de France in July.
“That’s a big regret,” he said of the former.
“I got stuck in no-man’s land when Ballan went. I attacked and first it was Rodriguez passed me and I couldn’t take his wheel and I was there at two or three metres; then 3.5 metres, then Gilbert passed and he wasn’t going that much faster than me. But he just had that consistency that made him go over the hill with maybe two seconds on top. I did the whole descent at five seconds and never got back on and they made it (to the finish). I think that’s one of my biggest disappointments.”
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“But also in the Tour, I gave it all on that Friday (stage 18) and I wasn’t expecting the bunch to fly back from behind but I think I would have lost to Sanchez anyway because when I saw the bunch coming back onto us I wasn’t expecting them to catch us. At the time I said ‘if I don’t go now they’ll definitely catch us’. So when I went, I thought I had opened up the gap but then watching it on TV I was like, ‘I never would have won’. And I crossed the line and (long exhale) got in the bus and they showed the replay of Sanchez being stuck on the wheel and when I was there with the noise of the crowd I was focused for the line and trying to give it all.”
“So at the end of the day, I gave it my all. I tried, I tried even for the jersey one day in the Vuelta when I was up with Contador and Froome but they sat up because they were losing too much energy and they didn’t think it was worth it and I said, ‘this could be a chance for me to go and get the jersey today’ so I tried. I needed 30 seconds, I only got 10 but I had satisfaction from trying. But unfortunately I was always disappointed with the results.”
On his overall Tour performance he said: “I never got the results I wanted, I was hoping for that top 10 and after two weeks I really thought I could even get seventh or eighth and I was like, ‘that’s it, I’m in seventh place now, I’ve had two strong weeks, the third week is going to be great’. But then I just had that day that my whole world fell apart and I dropped down to 10th and then obviously Kloden being so strong on the time-trial, overtook me. And I eventually dropped to 12th.”
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“I suppose I had some satisfaction in my first TT in the Tour, it’s not my best performance I was only 23rd or 24thbut it was one of my good TT’s and I really dug in and was really focused.”
Roche said he’ll take the next two to three weeks off the bike before heading to the Gran Canaria next month for his first camp with new team SaxoBank-TinkoffBank.
“I’m looking forward to that,” he said.
“The season has finished for me now over the last two weeks. I’ve continued riding my bike because the weather has been pretty good and there was no point stopping. And I wanted to go down and enjoy a couple of spins with some friends I haven’t seen in a while and have a coffee and a chat. That’s enjoyable, there’s no stress of training or doing five hours; just 2-3 hour spins. So now, from today, I’ll have a proper break of two and a half weeks and then start thinking about the training again and hopefully I’ll get more details about my programme and my role in the team.”
“I’m looking forward to it because the excitement about the move has gone down a bit and it’s two months on from the deal and now it’s like, ‘okay, the real stuff, what am I going to do? Where am I starting? What Tour am I going to do? Am I riding the Tour? Am I riding the Vuelta? Am I doing both? Am I doing the Giro? Where’s Contador going? What am I doing with him? What am I going to do without him? So all these little questions that I have to get answers from will start to emerge.”
Asked if there was one particular one-day race he’d like to win before he retires, he conceded Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
“I think Liege probably,” he smiled.
“If it was a Tour I would say the Tour of France obviously because the Tour growing up is like a kid interested in soccer, ask him would he like to win the World Cup, and he’ll say yes straight away. The Tour is everybody’s dream and Liege behind that is something special for a one day race.”
Roche was a guest of Midleton cycling and triathlon club over the weekend where he took part in a leisure cycle with club members before taking part in a Question and Answer session in the Rock Bar, Cloyne last night.
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