Nicolas Roche leads the group with Alberto Contador at a team training camp earlier in the season. He says he has had a quiet year thus far but is looking to relaunch his form for the second half of the campaign, starting at the Tour de Suisse which begins tomorrow.
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By Gerard Cromwell
Nicolas Roche is in Switzerland where he and cousin Dan Martin are due to fine tune their preparations for the upcoming Tour de France with the nine-day Tour de Suisse which begins tomorrow, Saturday.
While Martin has had a stellar start to the season, Roche admits things haven’t exactly gone to plan since his move from Ag2r La Mondiale to Saxo-Tinkoff this year, with 5th overall at the Tour of Mediterranean his only result of note.
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“Definitely, I’ve been very quiet,” he admits.
“It’s been the worst start of the year in a fair while, even though I know I’ve never gone really good at the start of the year. I usually start going well from around May onwards but it’s been the same every year, so maybe it’s just me.”
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“If you think about it, I’ve only gone really strong once in 10 years at the start of the year. I’ve had a few results in smaller races but nothing major. Everything’s great with the team. It’s just disappointing not to be able to provide them with a good result at the start of the year.”
“Maybe I got carried away and overdid it a bit trying to chase top form all the time. Eventually after Paris-Nice, it all kind of collapsed but I dug my own tomb. ”
A new protein rich team diet also saw Roche gain a few kilos, forcing him to revert to his own tried and trusted diet of the past, although he has yet to reach his optimum racing weight.
“When you’re three or four kilos heavier it’s never going to help,” he admits.
“I’m back on my normal diet now but I’m not like some of these guys that can magically lose 10 kilos in three months. I’ve lost a fair bit but I’m still a little bit off. Every year I feel I need the heat to help me lose the last kilo or so but it hasn’t been warm at all this year. We had snow on some training camps. The weather has probably been better in Ireland.”
Having finished 10th overall in Switzerland last year despite losing almost three minutes in the time trial, Roche admits he is going into this year’s race unsure as to how he will fare.
“I don’t know," is his honest answer.
"I haven’t raced. I’ve no idea where my level is. Training-wise I’ve been going okay. I’ve been doing a lot of work. It’s going to take me a couple of days to get into it... I’ll just try to find form.”
“We have Roman (Kreuziger) for the GC. I’ll try and give him a hand as much as I can for GC and it would be good to be able to perform on those big mountain days and try to get into top shape. We’ve a strong team. Everyone’s motivated and hopefully it’ll be fine. I’m just looking forward to getting back into racing now because I know that when the summer comes around I usually manage to pull out a few results.”
You can read Roche’s Tour de Suisse dairy in the Irish Independent every day from Monday.
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