Dan Martin battles illness as Nicolas Roche puts in Trojan effort on penultimate Alpine stage

Nicolas Roche, leading, put in a great effort in support of his team on today's stage 19 of the Tour de France.

By Gavin McLoughlin

Nicolas Roche produced a herculean performance in support of his Saxo-Tinkoff squad on a gruelling stage 19 of the Tour de France today, Friday.

The Irishman seemed to spend half the stage on the front of the peloton, pacing his colleagues up the climbs, along the valleys and down the descents.

His team’s tactics meant that race-leader Chris Froome was afforded a relatively easy ride, and with the day’s escapees well out of reach for much of the day, it seemed Roche’s efforts were directed towards maintaining Saxo-Tinkoff’s hold on the team classification.

The Irishman started the final climb with the bunch before finally sitting up with his day’s work done. His team successfully maintained their lead in the team competition, and a spent Roche eventually arrived home 23:50 behind stage winner Rui Costa (Movistar).

Garmin-Sharp leader Daniel Martin has been struggling with illness in recent days, and the Liège-Bastogne-Liège winner bravely managed to cling to the favourites’ group for most of today’s trek.

The Irishman was ultimately distanced on the penultimate climb of the day, eventually crossing the line 29:41 behind Costa.

It emerged here on stickybottle yesterday that Martin has been suffering from a virus since Tuesday and in his Tour de France diary today in The Irish Times, Martin stated his goal was to make it through today with a view to trying something on the final mountain stage of the race tomorrow.

Wet weather conditions in the latter stages of today will not have helped the sick Martin’s plight, but don’t rule stage 9’s winner totally out of contention.

Today the peloton was presented with a punishing 205 kilometre trek from Bourg d’Oisans to Le Grand Bornand. In the first half of the stage, the riders would scale two hors-categorie mountains.

Three categorised climbs populated the latter half of the day, the last being the first-category Col de la Croix Fry which peaked 13 kilometres out before the road plummeted down towards the finish.

In the early part of the stage, there were groups strewn all over the place as a multitude of riders were allowed to ride away from the overall contenders.

Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp) and Jon Izaguirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi) managed to get furthest up the road, and on the second mountain of the day – the Col de Madeleine - the Canadian dropped Izaguirre and set off by himself.

Hesjedal was caught by Pierre Rolland (Europcar) with about 4 kilometres left to the summit, and this duo started to work together. 12 minutes lay between the leaders and a yellow jersey group that included Roche and Martin, with a sizeable contingent including Costa, Andreas Klöden (Radioshack-Leopard) and Daniel Navarro (Cofidis) caught between.

When the overall favourites came to the top of the Madeleine, Roche was first over with Contador in his wheel. Yesterday, the Spaniard tried to put pressure on Froome the descent of the Col de Sarenne, and here the Saxo-Tinkoff men again took up the reins as the road plunged downward.

Roche led the way down the mountain but there was no serious attacking and Froome was untroubled. In the valley, the Irishman continued working as Rolland and Hesjedal cooperated out front.

Onto the third climb of the day and Hesjedal was now paying the toll for his extended efforts. Rolland easily rode away from the Canadian and before long a weary Hesjedal was caught by the second group on the road.

Roche continued with his labour and the Irishman set the pace when the peloton came to the third climb. Martin was still able to remain in the group.

The penultimate ascent arrived soon afterward and the gap from favourites to Rolland was still over 10 minutes, with some 45 kilometres remaining. The Frenchman dangled about 1:20 ahead of the chasing group, crossing the summit to mop up more mountain points in his quest to regain the polka-dot jersey.

Saxo-Tinkoff remained on the front and as the tempo of Roche and his teammates began to spit the weary out the rear, Martin was among those dropped.

Rolland was still in the lead as the final climb arrived, and when the chasers arrived 1:10 later they began to attack each other. Navarro was particularly aggressive as the skies darkened overhead and rain began to fall, threatening havoc on the downhill finale.

Roche brought the peloton up the start of the last ascent, before dropping off and taking a very well-deserved breather. Up the road, Rui Costa was the first man to catch Rolland, and it was no surprise when the Frenchman was unable to hang with the Portuguese for long.

A strong Costa maintained a comfortable lead out front, and when he began the final descent on his own the battle for the stage win was all but over. The Movistar man eventually arrived 48 seconds ahead of Klöden to take his second triumph of the race.

Behind, attacks came from Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and John Gadret (AG2R-La Mondiale), but it was a strong dig from Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha) that temporarily blew the favourites’ group apart. Many were distanced, but Froome, Alberto Contador (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) could not be budged.

Valverde and Gadret were allowed to ride away on the descent, while most of the favourites group came back together. The big guns ultimately arrived at Le Grand Bornand together, 8:40 behind Costa.

Unless disaster strikes Froome tomorrow, the Briton is certain to stand on the top step of the podium on Sunday.

Stage 20 is the final day in the mountains and the penultimate stage of the race, a 125 kilometre run from Annecy to the mountain summit of Semnoz. The route is relatively short, and is likely to make the action all the more aggressive.

Roche and Martin have each had a terrific Tour, and stage 20 will likely be their last chance to leave another mark on the race. If either is to win the stage, they will need to separate themselves from the overall contenders before the pace totally explodes.