Nicolas Roche has a very good record at the Vuelta and has shown good form after the Tour de France. One of four team leader's for Saxo-Tinkoff starting the race tomorrow, he says whoever proves strongest by the first rest day will be supported fully by the team.
Having shown some good post Tour de France form with a solid fifth place at the San Sebastian Classic a week later, Nicolas Roche has since been busy training for his main goal of the season, the Vuelta a Espana. It begins with a 27km team time trial in Villanova de Arousa tomorrow, Saturday.
“I’ve put in a lot of hard work leading up to this Vuelta and hopefully that will pay off over the next three weeks,” Roche told stickybottle as he heads into a race where he has never fared worse than 16th overall in his previous four attempts.
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“I like the race and I’ve gone well there before so hopefully I can do the same this year.”
Fresh from a 10-day training camp in Italy prior to leaving for Spain, Roche and his Saxo-Tinkoff teammates spent the last few days looking over the first few stage finishes, which includes an 11km long first category summit finish on Sunday’s stage two.
“It’s going to be a pretty hard start to the race, with the team time trial and then the first big mountain coming straight away the next day. It’s a long hard climb to the finish on Sunday so it will probably be a shock to the system for anyone who hasn’t raced in a while.”
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While Czech rider Roman Kreuziger will be hoping to improve on his fifth place finish at the Tour de France, Saxo-Tinkoff directeur sportif Fabrizio Guidi has stated that the team will go into the race with four leaders, including Kreuziger, Roche, Danish rider Chris Anker Sorenson and Polish prodigy Rafal Majka.
Those four will be ably supported by Italian Matteo Tossatto, Russian Evgeny Petrov, Danish duo Michael Morkov and Nicki Sorenson and 2011 Tour of Lombardy winner Oliver Zaugg of Switzerland.
“We have a very strong team and a very experienced team and it’s great to be able to start with four leaders,” says Roche.
“We will see how things pan out as the race goes on. The important thing is, everybody here wants to ride the Vuelta and we’re all ready to race."
"As regards a leader, usually you know by the first rest day who is going well and who is having a hard time and the good thing about this team is that everyone is willing to support whoever needs it. We have a great team spirit and we work hard as a team."
"Obviously Valverde, Rodriguez and Nibali are the main favourites but hopefully we can do something on GC and maybe surprise them a little bit.”
