As expected Philip Deignan, above, and Nicolas Roche have both been named in Team Sky's Giro line-up.
By Brian Canty
Ireland’s Nicolas Roche will start this year’s Giro d’Italia which gets underway this Friday in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands.
The Team Sky man last rode the race in 2014 and management believe he can be a key man in their bid for the maglia rosa.
Roche finished 30th overall two years ago and helped then Tinkoff-Saxo teammate Rafel Majka take sixth overall.
That year the race started in Belfast and Roche took some solid results, finishing fourth and fifth on mountain stages as well as taking fourth in the team time-trial.
That was only the second time he’d ridden the race, the other being way back in 2007 with French team Credit Agrícole.
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Roche is clearly in great form and goes into the Giro in a position to have a really strong race, all going well.
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He’s been a regular at the Tour and the Vuelta in recent seasons – and always performed well - so it should be interesting to see how he’ll go in the first of the three Grand Tours.
Also confirmed in the Team Sky line-up is Philip Deignan, the Donegal man getting the nod after an excellent showing in the recent Giro del Trentino where he helped teammate Mikel Landa secure overall victory.
Landa will once again lead the team's assault on the race.
The 32-year old Deignan has ridden the Giro four times - 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2014.
He finished 43rd in his most recent visit to the race but was overlooked for selection 12 months ago.
However, like Roche, while he will be restricted by team duties for Landa he is more than capable of taking a stage win if he gets a chance to strike out in the mountains.
Meet our squad for the 2016 #Giro d'Italia. The big race kicks off on Friday and we can't wait to get started!https://t.co/df44Ehxsmz
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) May 3, 2016
This year’s route has something for everyone and contains seven sprint stages, three time trials and nine summit finishes.
It gets underway this Friday with an individual time-trial and in total, there are 61 kilometres where riders will face off against the clock.
The other major test is the 41.9 kilometre time-trial on stage nine which will definitely put considerable order on the general classification.
Also confirmed for Team Sky are: Elia Viviani, Mikel Nieve, David Lopez, Ian Boswell, Christian Knees and Sebastian Henao.
We’ll have more on this as the race approaches.
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