Nicolas Roche in the main breakaway of stage 11 of the Giro d'Italia, his aggression coming after clearly recovering from his crash last week (Photo: Sirotti)
Irish duo Nicolas Roche and Philip Deignan were both in the thick of the action on stage 11 of the Giro d’Italia today.
As predicted by Deignan in his daily stickybottle Giro diary yesterday, there was a huge battle to get into the early escape this morning with various groups going clear before a 14 man escape containing the Team Sky man and his compatriot Roche eventually broke the elastic.
Roche was third across the summit of the second category climb of the Passo Cetro Croci after 66km and after a crash on the descent saw Orica GreenEDGE’s Luke Durbridge abandon the race, the breakaways began to open a decent lead.
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With their advantage stretched out to over four minutes by the halfway point, the move seemed destined for success. But an unexpected twist occurred back in the peloton when the Androni Giocottoli team began to chase hard on the front of the peloton with around 80km remaining.
Despite race leader Cadel Evans having a word in their ear after another crash at the back of the bunch claimed his BMC teammate Steve Morabito and some of the Team Sky and Lotto riders, Androni continued to drive the peloton along.
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A further 45km down the road, the gap had come down to just over a minute and a half while Deignan suffered a puncture just as the escapees headed onto the final second category climb of the day.
The Letterkenny man managed to regain contact on the climb, but with the Omega Pharma Quickstep now joining the chase, the lead group’s advantage fell to under a minute and they no longer looked capable of surviving to the finish.
Trek’s king of the mountains leader Julian Arredondo attacked and was the first of the chasers to get across to the front group, with Roche pulling clear with the Colombian Daniele Moreno of Katusha and Georg Priedler of Giant-Shimano.
Arredondo’s pace on the climb however soon saw the group split again and while Roche gritted his teeth and hung on for as long as he could, he too soon found himself swamped by the front of the peloton, which also included most of the overall favourites.
While there was no joy for the Irish duo today, Roche at least had some consolation when his Tinkoff-Saxo team mate Michael Rogers attacked on the descent and soloed to the team’s first stage win on this Giro.
Roche and Deignan eventually finished in 55th and 105th place respectively.
Philip Deignan made the same escape as Roche today and after a puncture he got back on, though the escape was overhauled by a concerted chase behind.
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