Nicolas Roche surpasses own expectations with storming ride at World Champs TT

Nicolas Roche on his way to 13th place at the World Championships TT in Florence, Italy, today (Photo: Sean Rowe)

By Gavin McLoughlin

Nicolas Roche delivered a fine 13^th place in the Elite Men’s Time Trial at the World Championships today, Wednesday.

Ireland’s sole representative in this event, Roche completed the essentially flat 57.9-kilometre course in a time of 1:08:50, doing enough to claim the scalps of noted time-trial specialists like Jonathan Castroviejo (Spain) and Bert Grabsch (Germany).

Speaking to stickybottle today, Roche knew he was never going to trouble the top contenders, but believed he could achieve a top-15 spot if he performed to his potential.

That is just what he did and the result bodes well ahead of Sunday’s road race, an event for which the Irishman has the form to be a contender.

Rolling down the start ramp at 1:21 pm Irish time, Roche was the 44th man to take to the course, beginning well before race favourites Tony Martin (Germany), Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland) and Bradley Wiggins (Great Britain).

In the first few metres, his aerodynamic helmet was slipping on his head a little, and it took a couple of adjustments before the Irishman was able to fully concentrate on the expanse of road that lay ahead.

Time-trialling is a discipline that in the past has been something of a weakness for Roche, so since joining Saxo-Tinkoff he has worked hard on his position and spent more time on the aerodynamic bike.

These efforts have borne fruit, with Roche finishing 20 seconds outside the top 15 in a flattish time-trial on stage 11 of this year’s Tour de France. At the Vuelta a Espana, he rode the best time-trial of his career to finish sixth on a hillier course.

And today he pushed himself hard to finish 13^th in the most important individual test of the season, going around at an average speed of 50.434 kph.

His wide-open mouth gulping the air in the final straight, Roche had done enough to put himself third-fastest among those who had finished the course by that point.

This meant he had to go and sit alongside then-leader Kanstantin Siutsou in a little tent that housed the virtual podium finishers. Though the Irishman and the Belarusian would have plenty of time to chat away amiably, Roche was eventually knocked off third spot when the Swedish strongman Gustav Larsson bested Siutsou’s time.

An unlikely Irish medal was not to be, but Roche's performance pleased Irish head coach Brian Nugent: "As Nicolas was going through the checkpoints, he was consistently in the top three or four slots. He rode a great time-trial, really strong in the middle-section."

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Nugent continued: "Nicolas has performed well in the time-trial stages of Tours this year, so he decided to spend some time preparing for the Worlds. He beat a lot of good time-trial specialists out there today."

The focus now switches to Sunday's road race, for which Roche has four days to recover.

Today's serious battle for gold was always going to be a three-way fight between the titans of time-trialling: Martin, Wiggins and Cancellara.

GPS time checks indicated that Cancellara was the fastest man in the early kilometres, but as the day progressed his beautiful pedalling style began to unravel. It appeared that the Swiss had gone too hard at the beginning.

Wiggins began as the slowest of the heavyweights, but in the final 15 kilometres of the course he managed to pull back a significant amount of time on the fading Cancellara. The Olympic champion was 13 seconds behind the Swiss at the final intermediate checkpoint, but he would go on to pip Cancellara to silver by two measly ticks of the clock.

Gold, however, would go to the German bruiser Tony Martin for the third year in succession. Martin is not pretty to watch, but he is ultra-effective.

After nullifying Cancellara’s early advantage, this powerhouse never looked like losing the lead. Churning an enormous gear, Martin ultimately pulverised his rivals by the best part of a minute.

And as he crossed the line in triumph, the German roared at the television cameras with delight before collapsing to the ground in exhaustion.

His disappointed rivals standing stony-faced beside him, Martin went on to receive his medal with a broad grin on his face. Once again, he is the undisputed king of the race against the clock.

@gavmcloughlin

World Championship Elite Men’s Time Trial:

Montecatini Terme to Florence (57.9 km)