Nicolas Roche looking focused on the road during the stage 17 TT at the Vuelta (Photo: Sirotti)
Nicolas Roche has posted a decent time in the Vuelta stage 17 individual time trial despite having no real need to push himself now that his aspirations of a top general classification position have fallen by the wayside.
While he stated last week after the withdrawal of squad leader Chris Froome that the team prize was still important, the effort he put in today would have been nowhere near his best had he been truly riding for time.
The Team Sky man completed the 38.7km race against the clock starting and finishing in Burgos in a time of 49mins 45secs.
That placed him 49th on the stage and 3:44 down on test winner Tom Dumoulin.
The stage winner regained the race lead for Giant-Alpecin from Joaquim Rodríguez; the Katusha man having started the day with an advantage of 1:51 on Dumoulin who was only 4th going into the TT.
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Fabio Aru of Astana lost 01:53 to Dumoulin but that sees him hang on to his aspirations of winning the race outright as he trails the new leader by just 3 seconds.
Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) is next at 1:15 followed by Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) at 2:22. Nairo Quintana of Movistar is 5th a further 31 seconds down.
There are four stages remaining and with four cat 1 climbs to negotiate on Saturday's penultimate leg, the race is still on.
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Aru will look to drop his Dutch rival when the road goes up.
However, the last of the big summit finishes is now behind the riders, a factor that has to put Dumoulin in poll position.
Stage 17: Burgos - Burgos (ITT) 38.7km
1 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Giant-Alpecin 0:46:01
2 Maciej Bodnar (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo 0:01:04
3 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:08
4 Vasil Kiryienka (Blr) Team Sky 0:01:31
5 Jerome Coppel (Fra) IAM Cycling 0:01:32
6 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team 0:01:33
7 Romain Sicard (Fra) Team Europcar 0:01:36
8 Nelson Oliveira (Por) Lampre-Merida 0:01:38
9 Stephen Cummings (GBr) MTN - Qhubeka 0:01:40
10 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:01:53
11 Bart De Clercq (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:02:04
12 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky 0:02:28
13 Stéphane Rossetto (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 0:02:31
14 Luis Leon Sanchez (Spa) Astana Pro Team 0:02:35
15 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:02:36
49 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky 0:03:44
General Classification
1 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Giant-Alpecin 68:40:36
2 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:00:03
3 Joaquim Rodriguez (Spa) Team Katusha 0:01:15
4 Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo 0:02:22
5 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team 0:02:53
6 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 0:03:15
7 Esteban Chaves (Col) Orica GreenEdge 0:03:30
8 Daniel Moreno Fernandez (Spa) Team Katusha 0:03:46
9 Mikel Nieve (Spa) Team Sky 0:04:10
10 Louis Meintjes (RSA) MTN - Qhubeka 0:06:51
11 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 0:07:41
12 Gianluca Brambilla (Ita) Etixx - Quick-Step 0:10:47
13 Fabrice Jeandesboz (Fra) Team Europcar 0:12:32
14 Bart De Clercq (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:13:38
15 Romain Sicard (Fra) Team Europcar 0:14:03
30 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky 0:46:15
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