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Nicolas Roche has spoken of how he was abused by Jumbo Visma’s Amund Jansen on yesterday’s stage of the Tour de France only to be blanked by the Norwegian.
The Irish cyclist rode well yesterday and was in the lead
group until Sepp Kuss (Jumbo Visma) and then Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) pressed
very hard in the final kilometre.
At that point the back of the group began to fracture and
while Roche lost 28 seconds to Primoz Roglic on the finish line he finished in
good company.
He was with Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) and the EF
Pro Cycling duo of Daniel Martinez and Sergio Higuita on a day when the field
was stretched more than 20 minutes back the road.
Writing in his Irish Independent Tour Diary today, Roche said he has mellowed in recent years but was really annoyed by the disrespectful riding of Jansen yesterday.
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And while Roche is one of the most experience riders in
the pro peloton, Jansen seemed determined to keep the dispute going a few
kilometres later.
Roche said Jansen “barged into me from the right as he
tried to cut onto the wheel in front of me”
on the penultimate climb of the day on yesterday’s stage 4.
He said it “really annoyed” him and resulted in the first
argument he’d had with a rider in a very long time.
“When you’re riding in close proximity every day, bumps and barges often happen accidentally so I thought nothing of it and just used my shoulder to bounce him off me. Then, he started cursing at me,” Roche wrote in his newspaper diary.
Roche said Jansen
called him a “fucking idiot” and when he challenged him on it Jansen repeated
the insult.
“I
politely informed him that he shouldn’t speak to me like that and after trading
a few insults we went our separate
ways,” the Irish Team Sunweb rider said.
“In the
valley below, I noticed Jansen just in front of me and with our little argument
behind us, I went to shake hands with him. He just blanked me and kept riding.”
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