Nicolas Roche is well placed as the racing gets harder at Tour de Suisse. The mountain stages begin with the Irish rider 15th overall.
Nicolas Roche moved into the top 15 overall at the Tour de Suisse on stage 5 yesterday and is well placed as the racing moves to hilly terrain.
The Irish rider finished in 25th place yesterday, in the 100-strong bunch as Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QuickStep) won in a sprint.
At the end of 177km from Münchenstein to
Einsiedeln the Italian national champion claimed victory from race leader Peter
Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe).
It was Viviani’s second stage victory in as many days. Yesterday’s action marked the end of the flat stages and the beginning of the hillier terrain.
As the racing moves onto the climbs Nicolas Roche (Team Sunweb) is 15th overall at 48 seconds.
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Today, Thursday, the course takes the riders 120k from Einsiedeln to Flumserberg.
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It is a short stage over grippy terrain
before the final climb, a HC ascent of some 8.4km at 9.2 per cent.
Friday’s stage 7 is harder, over some 216.6km from Unterterzen to St Gotthard. The San Gottardo climb to the summit finish is 12km at 7.4 per cent.
That is followed by the penultimate stage
8 on Saturday; a pan flat 19.2km TT in Goms.
Tour de Suisse 2019 concludes on Sunday
with a brutal 101km stage, again starting and finishing in Goms.
It features three HC climbs, the last one
followed by 23.5km to the finish, about half of it downhill.
Though Geraint Thomas is missing from
the Team Ineos line-up having crashed out on stage 4, it still has Egan Bernal
in the running.
The 22-year-old Colombian is in 12th
place at 45 seconds and is perhaps the favourite for the overall title.
However, it is a race Roche can do well in over the coming days as he builds towards the Tour de France.
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