Leading
a Grand Tour was like living his boyhood dreams all over again, Nicolas Roche
has said.
He
retained the Vuelta leader’s jersey on stage 3 into Alicante today and so
carries it into a second day tomorrow.
“I’m like a young kid again, living a
dream wearing the leader’s jersey,” he said.
Roche
added he was very pleased to hold the race lead having lost it after one stage
last time he led the race back in 2013.
“I’m
very happy, it’s one more day than the last time,” he joked. “Today was a good
day, it was quite a nervous stage.
“There was a lot of tension, we rode safely up the front and in the end there was no big issue, but it was quite nervous and stressful all day long.”
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While
tomorrow features just one late climb, the weather forecast is for wet
conditions and Roche believe that would make the day tricky.
“In
this region the wind plays a big role and the roads are quite open. So you have
to be on your toes all the time.
“I
didn’t expect also attacks on the climb with 50k to go today, which was quite
some tactic.
“So
you have to be always aware, always ready in the front. And that’s the
difficulty of riding a three week tour.”
He
added while he had no specifically checked out the next few stages, he did not
believe that would be a problem.
“I haven’t done a recon for the next
stages particularly. I know some, if not most of the roads from the past years.
“Generally, I’ve done a lot of the climbs in the Vuelta but the
profiles and information is online too, so we will study that as well.”
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