Nicolas Roche has said a crash near the head of the bunch coming off the final climb in yesterday’s opening stage of the Volta a Catalunya caused a moment’s hesitation that proved enough to see the decisive 13-man escape slip up the road.
The Saxo-Tinkoff rider expressed his frustration at missing the move containing many of the pre-race favourites – including Dan Martin - saying the 28 seconds he lost all but rules him out of the fight for overall honours but is not enough to allow him up the road in breakaways to try for a stage win later in the week.
Roche said he had been warned in his pre-stage team talk to be attentive going over, and coming off, the final climb. He added when he saw Bradley Wiggins and his Team Sky team mates moving up to the front at the very top of the climb preparing to launch an attack down the descent, he was near the front and ready to respond.
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“I was ready for action on the descent but a crash by one of the Francaise des Jeux riders on one of the corners caused mayhem on the downhill run into the finish,” he wrote in his race diary in today’s Irish Independent.
With just 17km from the top of the last climb to the finish, Roche said he rode frantically to get back to the breakaway moving up the road.
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He said he was in a four-man group with Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), who blasted across to the breakaway. However, when Tom Danielson (Garmin-Sharp) let the Spaniard’s wheel go, Roche said the narrow roads meant he couldn’t get past Danielson immediately to bury himself after Rodriguez.
He sprinted up a small incline like it was the finish line in an effort to close the gap to the escape, but it was too late and nobody else from the bunch got across to the leaders.
Roche, who is joint team leader for the race with Chris Anker Sorensen, was “raging” to have lost time, adding he believed nobody who missed the breakaway now has a “snowball’s chance in hell” of winning the race overall.
Roche eventually finished 82nd yesterday, coming home in the main bunch some 28 seconds down on the breakaway. Dan Martin was 4th on the stage.
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