Long range attack nets Nicolas Roche season best result; shows his Giro far from over

Nicolas Roche powers his way towards 5th place in the Giro d'Italia yesterday; his result and earlier brave bid for stage glory showing with a week remaining he still has plenty of fire in his belly for a big result here (Photo: Sirotti)

Nicolas Roche has demonstrated his best form of the season in the Giro d’Italia by making the main breakaway of the day again on stage 14 yesterday, before attacking the large move in a long range bid for stage glory.

While those efforts did not bring him the victory he is chasing at this race, he hung on for 5th place on the 163km stage from Aglie to Oropa which finished atop a cat 1 climb.

Roche was one of 21 men to move clear early yesterday and by the 75 kilometre marker with almost have the course covered the gap back to the bunch was 11 minutes.

The Irish man riding for Tinkoff-Saxo led the escape over the Belmonte third climb of the day and blasted down the other side alone, obviously hopeful that others from the group, which was too big to work well, would come and join him in a bid to make it all the way.

However, that possibility did not come to pass and he was recaptured after the front runners came off the climb and were readying themselves for the final push to the summit finish up the next ascent.

It was then the turn of Albert Timmer (Giant Shimano) and Manuel Quinziato (BMC) to push clear, with the latter suffering a mechanical problem necessitating a bike change and leaving Timmer the unlikely lone leader heading up the final climb.

While he battled on very well, he was joined inside the final 3km by Dario Cataldo (Team Sky) and Jaelinson Pantano (Colombia).

They promptly dropped Timmer, though he was caught from behind by Enrico Battaglin (Bardiani-CSF) and Jan Polanc (Lampre-Merida). All three caught the two leaders before an attack by Polanc finally shook off Timmer for good inside the final kilometre.

That left four up front nervously approaching the cobbled finish. Cataldo and Pantano passed Polanc in the dying couple of hundred metres and Cataldo was looking good for the stage in the dash to the line.

However, he and Pantano had gone too early and died to the line, with Battaglin waiting a while and in the end just overhauling Cataldo for the win, with Roche coming home in 5th some 22 seconds after the winner.

Philip Deignan (Team Sky) did not feature at the head of the race in the finale, but his 42nd place, some 4:54 down, shows he is solid on the eve of the final difficult week of the race where he hopes to get in some breakaways and try for a stage win.

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In the battle for the leader’s pink jersey, both Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2r) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) attacked the group of main favourites with 4km of climbing to the finish and dropped race leader Rigoberto Uran (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) and second overall Cadel Evans (BMC).

Quintana won that battle, putting four seconds into the Italian, with Evans a not insignificant further 16 seconds adrift.

The pink jerseyed Uran looked fallible in being distanced by Evans and losing five seconds to him. The Colombian was 25 and 21 seconds down on Quintana and Pozzovivo respectively, to set up what should be a fantastic battle in coming days for the overall win come next Sunday.

Shattered: With an uphill cobbled finish coming after a very tough 164km stage in the mountains, Roche and most of the other riders came to a standstill immediately on crossing the finish line (Photo: Sirotti)

May 9th-June 1st: Giro d’Italia

May 24th: Stage Stage 14: Agliè - Oropa 164km

General Classification