Having started the stage winning breakaway on the sixth day of racing today at the Tour de France, Nicolas Roche said the pressure on the Col de la Lusette was too much for him.
As Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) piled on the pressure, before pressing clear solo to win the day, Roche lost touch and was eventual caught by the large general classification group.
At the finish he was disappointed but had the consolation of the combativity prize, adding he was determined to now recover and go up the road again soon on the race.
“I’m exhausted and a bit disappointed,” said Roche. “I think I had done pretty well most of the day but unfortunately the change of rhythm on the steep ramps of the first category climb completely killed me.
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“I wanted to be in the breakaway on this stage. I knew that today there was a chance it arrived at the finish, and it did, but unfortunately I wasn’t strong enough to follow the top guys on the second last climb.
“I wasn’t surprised by the steep ramps because we had studied it really well over the last few days. Today is a day that I had a tick beside; that’s also why I lost time purposely yesterday in the last ten kilometres, to get a bit of a gap for today.
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“Sometimes you know about it but the legs just don’t go with it. I’ll take a stage or so to recover but hopefully over the next few weeks I’d like to be able to give it a go again.”
Team Sunweb coach Matt Winston said the team had targeted getting a rider in the breakaway today, adding Roche had done the job.
“Nico showed really good strength to start the breakaway and showed real aggression in the beginning of the stage,” he said.
“He went away in a good group, and obviously the winner went all the way to the finish line. They’re the sort of breakaways we want to be a part of but Nico just didn’t have the legs today.
“He picked up a nice combativity award for starting the day’s breakaway and now we focus our efforts again on tomorrow’s sprint.”
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