Nicolas Roche said he was delighted to be up the road in
the breakaway yesterday at the Tour, explaining he decided on an all-out bid
for glory on the final climb about 15km out.
And while that effort came up short and he slipped back
from the leading trio on the road to claim 6th, he felt he had done everything
he could to try and win the stage.
“I had goose bumps going up the climbs today,” he said of racing at the head of the field on Bastille Day on stage 9 into Brioude.
“When you're a kid you dream about going up the climbs
with all these crowds. And I was kind of living the dream again. It was nice to
be back in a Tour de France breakaway.”
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In the end Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott) and Tiesj
Benoot (Lotto Soudal) went on to claim 1st and 2nd.
They were the only ones who could stay with Roche when he attacked on the final climb from the group of seven left from the original 15-man breakaway.
“My plan was to give everything on that last climb and
see how I was going afterwards,” said
Roche after placing 6th on the stage.
“I knew that if the bigger horsepower guys were with me
by the top then I would have lost anyway.
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“The
problem was when we went through that town they tried to put a bit of pressure
on.
“And when
Benoot went I didn’t have the explosiveness in my legs to close the gap. I
stayed a few seconds behind, trying to fight back on.
But then I
realised the group behind was coming fast. I waited for them and tried to
recover but I had nothing left for the sprint in the end.
“I had my
shot today and unfortunately I didn’t get the top result I wanted. But sixth
place isn’t too bad.”
Team Sunweb coach
Aike Visbeek said he was happy with the team’s ride and with Roche taking the
fight to the opposition.
“I think we rode a good stage today: we needed to either
be in a big break or allow only a small
group to get away,” he said.
“We had Nicolas
in there which was good as he is a strong guy for this type of terrain.
“He did
what he needed to do on the climb; go early and make the climb as hard as
possible to try and drop the faster guys.
“It was a
good fight from Nicholas and unfortunately there was no stage victory for us,
but we were in the game again.”
Nicolas Roche's day in Tour breakaway
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