Chris Anker, Michael Rogers and Nicolas Roche nearing the finish of another hard day in the saddle on Saturday on the Giro. While team duties must now be performed, Roche still hopes to go on the attack.
While he has already taken on some team duty riding to help his team mate Rafal Majka protect is 3rd place on general classification at the Giro d’Italia, Nicolas Roche has said he has recovered a little after his crash last week and harbours hopes of trying to go in the breakaways before three week tour ends.
Writing in his Giro diary in today’s Irish Independent, the Tinkoff-Saxo man said he felt empty on the climb of Cipo di Carpegna with around 50km remaining on Saturday’s stage.
He focussed on getting some food into him after being dropped by the select group and when caught from behind by around 10 riders they made their way back up the depleted peloton.
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He said he had felt hungry for a while before blowing on the ascent. And when the riders hit the last 8km climb of the day he rode to the finish with his team mates Michael Rogers and Chris Anker.
And while still suffering from the crash that ended his overall hopes on the race, he seemed determined to find a bright side.
“I’m still not perfect,” he wrote of Saturday’s stage.
“My hip is still a bit sore, but I feel much better than yesterday on the last climb and at least I’m beginning to feel half normal.”
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On yesterday’s 172km trek from Lugo to Sestola, the Irish man was in a position to go to the front of the favourites group with around 7km remaining to the summit finish up the last ascent, as a couple of riders from the original breakaway were still out front contesting the stage win.
Roche said he was keen to keep the pace high for as long as possible to try and dissuade an anticipated attack from one of Majka’s main rivals for a place on the podium, Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2r).
“Pozzovivo launched his attack with 4km to go and, while I tried to increase the pace behind him, I had burned all my matches and swung out of the way as race leader Evans and the other contenders took over the chase.”
The Ag2r danger man managed to break clear and caught all but two of the original breakaway up the road to take 3rd on the stage and put 26 seconds into Majka and the others, with Roche riding to the finish for 50th place, 2:54 down the group containing his team mate and the other overall contenders.
“Now 49th overall, over 24 minutes behind, my goal now is to help Rafal maintain his podium place while looking out for a breakaway later on in this race.”
Today is rest day on the Giro.
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