Nicolas Roche digs deep up the road on Saturday's queen stage of the Giro d'Italia (Photo: Sirotti)
Nicolas Roche may have lost his place up front on stage 14 of the Giro d’Italia when the going got really tough, but the Irishman’s presence off the front is hopefully a taste of things to come.
With about 40km completed a large group of 37 riders had pulled clear with Team Sky’s Roche in the mix.
Despite total cooperation almost impossible in a group so big, they had built a lead of 2:30 with 50km covered and 160km remaining on the queen stage from Alpago to Corvara.
And with 70km covered that lead had gone north of four minutes as Movistar controlled the peloton behind for race leader Andrey Amador.
Having won Friday’s stage via Mikel Nieve, Roche was up front with David Lopez clearly hoping to add to the stage win tally now that team leader Mikel Landa was out of the race.
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Lopez was first over the top of the Passo Sella, the second climb of the day; leading solo to win a special prime in memory of Marco Pantani.
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Roche was second over the top almost one minute back, with the main field over seven minutes behind the head of the race.
On the descent a group of 12 pulled clear, including Roche, and soon joined Lopez to make it 13 up front.
However, the Team Sky men were later distanced on the Passo Giau climb as Nieve had stayed with the general classification contenders behind.
But while some of the early breakaway would survive out front, Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) and Steven Kruijswijk (Lotto NL Jumbo) distances the general classification contenders and caught those out front on the final climb.
Chaves took the stage win on the summit with Kruijswijk 2nd and taking the race lead.
Georg Preidler (Giant Alpecin) and Darwin Atapuma (BMC) with 3rd and 4th having survived from the early breakaway.
Roche would eventually finish in 24th, some 8:03 down in the winner. The only other Irishman in the race, Philip Deignan of Team Sky, came home in 85th in a group 31:20.
Both will be unconcerned with their time loss as they are not riding for the general classification, though they will look to break away in the hunt for stage wins during the final week of the race.
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