Nicolas Roche battles his way up the brutally steep slopes of the Zoncolan to the Giro's summit finish on Saturday and 4th place on the day (Photo: Sirotti)
Nicolas Roche has said while the Giro d’Italia, which ended yesterday, was disappointing from a personal perspective his team was happy with the outcome.
Tinkoff-Saxo won two stages with veteran Australian Mick Rogers, including the penultimate leg up the Zoncolan summit finish on Saturday when Roche was also in the escape and took 4th place on the day.
As well as those two wins, its young emerging star Rafal Majka was a very strong 6th overall. The Pole was also third overall in the young riders’ classification, behind race winner Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Fabio Aru of Astana who was third overall in the general classification proper.
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For Roche, while his 4th place on the penultimate stage was his top result, he said the fact the first three stages were held in Ireland was the overall high point for him.
“(It was) an unbelievable high point and it’s an experience I will never live through again,” he wrote in his concluding Irish Independent Giro diary today.
Nicolas Roche cut a sorry figure at the end of Giro d’Italia stage 6 after a crash on the road to Montecassino cost him 15 minutes and any chance of a high general classification place in this year’s race.
He added that on yesterday’s final stage, because there was a small climb each lap, he remained vigilant in the hope the field may split a little and enable him to try for a result. But the sprinters’ teams controlled things very well, with Giant Shimano’s Luka Mezgec winning.
After the racing concluded, he and his team mates celebrated with champagne and pizza before he parted company with the riders and staff he had spent the past three weeks with. He now plans to spent a few days in Madrid “to unwind and relax” before starting into training for the Tour de France next month.
Having come of out the Giro in very good form after chasing condition in the early part of the year thanks to an injury-hit winter, Roche said the action over the past three weeks had really benefited him, adding he was looking forward to his next races.
The low point of his race was the crash on the road to Montecassino on stage 6 that saw him suffer serious road rash.
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He also broke his bike, and having been forced to wait by the roadside for several minutes for a service on what was a chaotic stage, he never regained what was left of the peloton.
He then limped home in the grupetto 15 minutes down, his chances of an overall result gone up in smoke.
“I slid along the ground at 75kph and bounced over the kerb of a roundabout,” he wrote in his Irish Independent diary today.
With his general classification hopes gone, he said he became “mentally disillusioned” that day.
However, since then he has gone on the attack and made several breakaways, with two of those succeeding.
While he had not claimed a stage victory, he took 4th and 5th on those stages, with team mate Rogers winning both.
“My team mate won on both days so you have to be satisfied with that,” he said.
“(But) for me personally, I’m a bit disappointed not to be going home with a stage win.”
Shattered: With an uphill cobbled finish coming after a very tough 164km stage 14 in the mountains, Roche and most of the other riders came to a standstill immediately on crossing the finish line (Photo: Sirotti)
It all seems like a long time ago now, but Roche got a huge welcome at the team presentation in Belfast City Hall the day before the racing got underway with the team time trial around the city (Photo: Toby Watson)
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