Nicolas Roche has saved the best until last in what has been an eventful Giro for him, taking 4th place on the fearsome Zoncolan summit finish (Photo: Sirotti)
Nicolas Roche took the best result of his season thus far when he finished fourth atop the brutally steep ascent of Monte Zoncolan today on the penultimate stage of the Giro d’Italia.
Roche’s Tinkoff-Saxo squad capped a solid performance at this year’s Giro with a second stage win by Aussie Michael Rogers today while Polish teammate Rafal Majka held onto sixth place overall.
Both Rogers and Roche were in the main move of the day which included 19 riders and with Roche doing much of the driving as the group descended the penultimate climb, they opened up a gap of just under eight minutes as they came to the foot of the legendary final 10km ascent of Monte Zoncolan.
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When Simon Geschke of Giant Shimano hit the front at the bottom, the duo were still present when the group shrunk down to just Geschke’s team Georg Priedler, Franco Pelizotti of Androni Venezuala, Francesco Bongiorno (Bardiani) and Colombian Robinson Chalapud.
With 6km remaining however, Pelizotti upped the pace at the front of the group and only Rogers and Bongiorno could follow.
Pelizotti suffered for his effort a kilometre later though, leaving Rogers and Bongiorno alone out front.
With Rogers looking strong, Bongiorno managed to stay with the former world time trial champion but his chances of winning the stage were ended just 3km from the summit.
Here, an over eager fan tried to give the Italian a push and inadvertently shoved him into the back wheel of Rogers, causing him to pull his foot out and lose contact with the Australian.
From there Rogers powered to the top, although he too had to fight his way through some of the fans near the finish.
Rogers took the stage win by 38 seconds from a recovered Pelizotti who passed an unlcky Bongiorno in the final 500metres.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to win a mountain top finish like that,” said Rogers afterwards. "It was such a hard climb and I was battling myself at a number of times.
But on the final bit of the slope when I was riding with Bongiorno, I believed it was possible to pull it off and when I discovered I was alone, there was no other way to go but head down, full speed.
I'm really honoured to win here on this legendary climb in these fantastic surroundings. We knew this was our final chance of winning and we pulled it off."
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Roche put in a solid ride to hang on for fourth place on the stage, riding away from Brent Bookwalter of BMC on the final hairpin to claim another top result at this Giro and show that he is clearly coming into good form as the Tour de France approaches.
"To finish fourth on the hardest climb in the world, and you're teammate to win the stage, I have to be happy with that," said Roche afterwards.
"Although I lost my chances of doing a good ride overall when I crashed a few weeks ago, I think I'm coming into decent form now and I think this Giro will bring me on for the Tour de France.
I think I needed to have this race in my legs and now that I'm finishing it strongly, it gives me confidence for the rest of the season."
Stage Result, in brief
1 Michael Rogers (Aus) Tinkoff-Saxo 4:41:55
2 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Androni Giocattoli 0:00:38
3 Francesco Manuel Bongiorno (Ita) Bardiani-CSF 0:00:49
4 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Tinkoff-Saxo 0:01:35
5 Brent Bookwalter (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:01:37
6 Robinson Eduardo Chalapud Gomez (Col) Colombia 0:01:46
7 Georg Preidler (Aut) Team Giant-Shimano 0:01:52
8 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Lotto Belisol 0:02:12
9 Dario Cataldo (Ita) Team Sky 0:02:24
10 Simon Geschke (Ger) Team Giant-Shimano 0:02:37
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