Roche apologies over Team Sky stage loss but Froome defends him

Nicolas Roche was devastated after today's events. His team mate Geraint Thomas was annoyed the team did not win, but Chris Froome has defended Roche (Photo: Sirotti)

 

Nicolas Roche has apologised after Team Sky missed out on victory at the Tour de France team time trial (TTT) by just 0.62 seconds to BMC Racing.

The Irish rider struggled in the final few hundred metres after a testing incline to the finish saw Wouter Poels put everyone under pressure before peeling off and being dropped.

That left just five Sky riders, with the time of the fifth team member across the line the one that counted and meaning there was no room for error in the final kilometre.

After Poels had done his turn, Geraint Thomas took over, while Froome also hit the front.

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And just as the riders neared the finish line, the gap between Roche and the wheel ahead of him opened.

The other four riders were forced to stall just a little to ensure they did not drop the Irishman.

Roche said afterwards there were "no words to express how I feel now". He added while losing the stage by just six tenths of a second was hard, he had given his all.

"Sorry guys," he signed off.

He then took to Twitter again to reiterate his sentiments, saying he was sorry because winning a stage of the Tour with the team had been a dream of his and he was disappointed they had all come so close.

“I was pretty generous again in the second half of the course,” Roche told the media afterwards.

“It’s true that (Geraint Thomas) was really strong and that took me out of my comfort zone. I don’t have any words to explain my disappointment.”

The fact Roche had pushed very hard earlier in the stage was clear when it emerged he had clocked the highest speed of any rider in the field; reaching 78.37kph at the 16.5km point of the 28km test.

 

     

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Thomas was clearly very disappointed to have been beaten, with Team Sky some five seconds ahead of BMC starting the climb of just over 1km to the finish.

"I'm annoyed we didn't win. We should have won that," he said, though at no time did he single out anyone on the team for criticism.

"Fair play to BMC they did a good ride but it’s disappointing. It's been a tough week.

"A lot of people say it, that the Tour starts on Tuesday with the mountains, which is crazy, but we can be happy. We put time into everyone else bar Tejay, but we really wanted that."

Froome was clear to mention Roche in his post race comments, and was quick to spring to his defence.

“At 0.6 seconds, you can’t really cut it too finely there to say where we messed up," he said.

"The guys gave it everything, everyone was really motivated for this team time trial.

“In the final we saw Nico Roche struggling a little bit up that final climb but that’s the nature of the team time trial.

“He gave so much earlier on, you definitely can’t put it down to him struggling on the final climb.

"We gave it everything and BMC were just better than us.”     

 

 

 

 

 

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