Roche pictured at Paris-Nice earlier this year (Photo by Paddy Sweeney www.velopeloton.com)
Nicolas Roche had a disappointing ride in today’s crucial time trial stage of the Tour de Suisse, finishing 44th on the stage and slipping from 5th of 15th overall.
The Irishman lost 2:12 to stage winner Fredrik Carl Wilhelm Kessiakoff (Astana) and crucially also lost time to virtually all of his GC rivals in the 34.3km test in Gossau.
Roche was 25th in the opening prologue TT last Saturday and then was an excellent sixth on the mountain stage on Sunday. That moved him up to fifth overall, where he remained all week going into this morning’s TT.
However, having lost time today he now finds himself in 15th place overall. The race finishes on Sunday but before then the riders have two mountain stages to negotiate, leaving Roche with plenty of time to use his climbing legs to try and nudge himself back up the overall standings.
Advertisement
He is now still only 1:52 down on race leader Rui Alberto Costa (Movistar); only 25 seconds down on the top ten and just 48 seconds down on the top five.
Related News
Tomorrow’s stage finishes atop of the hors category climb at Arosa. On Sunday the riders face two more hors category climbs before the race finishes at the top of the second cat climb at Sorenberg.
Stage 7 – 34.3km TT in Gossau
1 Fredrik Carl Wilhelm Kessiakoff (Swe) Pro Team Astana 0:46:36
2 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) RadioShack-Nissan 0:00:02
3 Maxime Monfort (Bel) RadioShack-Nissan 0:00:20
4 Jérémy Roy (Fra) FDJ-Big Mat 0:00:25
5 Robert Gesink (Ned) Rabobank Cycling Team 0:00:27
6 Tanel Kangert (Est) Pro Team Astana 0:00:34
7 Andreas Klöden (Ger) RadioShack-Nissan 0:00:38
8 Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa (Por) Movistar Team 0:00:41
9 Peter Velits (Svk) Omega Pharma - QuickStep 0:00:43
10 Brent Bookwalter (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:00:51
44 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale 0:02:12
General Classification
1 Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa (Por) Movistar Team 26:10:55
2 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Pro Team Astana 0:00:50
3 Robert Gesink (Ned) Rabobank Cycling Team 0:00:55
4 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:04
5 Frank Schleck (Lux) RadioShack-Nissan
6 Thomas Danielson (USA) Garmin-Barracuda 0:01:12
7 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Omega Pharma - QuickStep 0:01:15
8 Vladimir Gusev (Rus) Katusha Team 0:01:17
9 Thomas Löfkvist (Swe) Sky Procycling 0:01:22
10 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) Rabobank Cycling Team 0:01:27
11 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) RadioShack-Nissan 0:01:34
12 Mikel Nieve Ituralde (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:01:36
13 Tanel Kangert (Est) Pro Team Astana 0:01:40
14 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ-Big Mat 0:01:42
15 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:52
Topics
