Nicolas Roche has spoken of the hardest year of his career, 2018, as he got a divorce and found himself in need of the support of his family and friends like no other time in his life.
The former pro rider added at his lowest point, during the 2018 Giro, he had "an anxiety attack and I had to stop cycling and I sat on a wall crying".
In an interview on the Tri Talking Sport podcast, Roche also revealed Cycling Ireland national team coach Tommy Evans had asked him to get involved with managing the U23 Irish road team, adding he was going to take Evans up on the offer.
Roche also spoke of how cycling had changed, with pro teams now placing a greater emphasis on signing very young riders. He said any rider hoping to turn pro now needed to be ready to make the move at a very young age rather than waiting for a few more seasons to pass.
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"You need to be ready to go abroad, make the sacrifices and there's no holding back," he said. "You have to hope that you're good enough and strong enough to last through the years or else it's not going to work.
"Obviously you need to be dominating the races in Ireland, if you're not already dominating the races in Ireland there's no point going abroad," he said, though added some riders may want to go and race abroad for the experience, rather than to turn pro.
Asked by host Joanne Murphy what the lowest point in his career was, Roche replied: "Undoubtedly, 2018. That was kinda a year to forget, although the last couple of months were much better."
He said his divorce, which he has spoken of before, was a very hard time, adding he wasn't sleeping at night because of the stress over what was going on in his personal life.
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"The whole spring campaign and fighting with the team… it was like six months of nightmare. I wasn't sleeping at night," he said.
Roche explained he had tried to keep his personal life quiet at the time but wondered now if that was a mistake, adding back then he was not trying to make excuses for his form on the bike. While he was training well during that year, he said when he went to races he had lost the ability to go deep.
"I had been through split-ups and separations before with ex relationships but this was divorce. I also had this feeling of losing my house after not even a year, I had only slept not even in two months in it. I felt it was this kinda injustice, frustration, and this was eating away at me."
However, he said he had valued friends, including those away from the sport, and they rallied around him. Some of them took time out from their lives and accompanied him on weekends in the Alps training as he set about getting back on track, though he said it was a very hard time in his life.
"I had to go through counselling, it wasn't easy. Lucky enough, at that time I needed by friends and family and they were all there for me and always believed I could make it back to the top level," he said.
For about six months he really needed the support of those around him and he got it. Looking back now he considered himself very lucky to have that support at such a low ebb in his life.
"I can relate to people who are alone or in a really dark zone and isolated, it's harder again," he said. "I was 34 at the time and some people were telling me 'you're old, you're finished'. And I was like 'no, no'.
"And because I never said (anything publicly) about the divorce and my brother's cancer… everyone was saying 'he's just done, that's it, he's done his career and he's done 14 years, so that was a long enough career'."
But he was convinced at the time that once he got his "head right" he could return to the top level again. After that 2018 season he left BMC Racing and went to Team Sunweb, riding the Tour de France twice more and holding the leader's jersey in La Vuelta for several stages in 2019.
