Nicolas Roche and Team Sky have enjoyed a brilliant all-round day with Woet Poels winning the stage in the Tour of Britain and the Irishman taking sixth. And in the Vuelta they also took stage honours through Chris Froome.
By Brian Canty
Nicolas Roche has delivered one of his best performances of the season today with a brilliant sixth place finish on stage six of the Tour of Britain.
The Team Sky rider was 17 seconds behind his teammate and stage winner Woet Poels on a day Steve Cummings (Dimension Data) took the race leader’s jersey from the shoulders of Julian Vermotte (Etixx-QuickStep).
Cummings was 21 seconds down on the stage winner today but because Vermote lost 1:52 the 35 year-old two-time Tour de France stage winner ended the day as race leader.
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Roche went blow for blow with the best riders in the race on the way up to the summit finish at Haytor, Dartmoor after a 150-kilometre trek from Sidmouth.
Poels wins the stage, Team Sky's second victory of the race after Stannard's solo triumph.
The Irish national champion was clearly looking to move up the GC but he was also chasing KOH points as he started the day second in that classification.
Alas, the man he trails there Xandro Meurisse (Wanty Groupe Gobert) was ahead of him in fifth today and the Belgian leads that by 15 points (57 points to 42).
Roche did take five points today on the day’s categorised climbs but it wasn’t enough to see him move to the top of the standings.
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Still, it was an excellent performance by him given the illnesses he’s suffered since the Olympic Games.
He looked lean and trim today and that’s a testament to the discipline he’s showed when not being able to train to the usual capacity while sick over the last weeks.
The crowds packed the route again, with huge numbers turning out at the finish.
The morning time-trial tomorrow should suit him as it’s ‘only’ 15 kilometres but there aren’t so many hills and it should a big powerful rider like himself.
His cousin Dan Martin was 20th over the line today, 1:33 behind Poels.
Martin and Vermote were two of the favourites for the stage and despite massive pulling by three-time time-trial world champion Tony Martin they never caught fire when the road kicked up and lost big time..
Martin slipped to 12th overall at 2:10 while Roche jumped to seventh and now trails by 1:06.
Of the other Irish riders, Ryan Mullen was was next best some 17 minutes back while Damien Shaw and Conor Dunne were both in the grupetto over 24 minutes down.
Mullen has set the time-trial tomorrow as one of his big targets and should go close to the top 10 if he is on a good day.
We'll have a chat with Roche later.
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