Nicolas Roche

Nicolas Roche

Roche at the 2013 Tour de France
Personal information
Full name	Nicolas Roche
Nickname	Nico[1]
Born	(1984-07-03) 3 July 1984 Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, France
Height	1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)[2]
Weight	70 kg (150 lb; 11 st)[2]
Team information
Current team	Team Tinkoff-Saxo
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All-rounder
Amateur team(s)
2002 2003 2003–2004 2004	OCCV Draguignan SC Nice Vélo-Club La Pomme Marseille Cofidis (stagiaire)
Professional team(s)
2005–2006 2007–2008 2009–2012 2013–	Cofidis Crédit Agricole Ag2r-La Mondiale Team Saxo-Tinkoff
Major wins
Grand Tours Vuelta a España 1 individual stage (2013) One-day races and Classics National Road Race Championships (2009) National Time Trial Championships (2007)
Infobox last updated on 5 January 2014

Nicolas Roche (born 3 July 1984) is an Irish professional road bicycle racer. He has twice been national champion and has numerous top ten finishes in Grand Tour stages. He represented Ireland at the 2008 Summer Olympics in the road race. He has competed for Ireland 7 times at the road world championships.

Early life

Roche, who was born in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, France, is the son of former cycling champion Stephen Roche and his former wife, Lydia, nephew of former cycling professional Lawrence Roche and cousin of 2008 Irish road champion Daniel Martin. Roche was educated at Blackrock College, a private school in Dublin, before moving to south of France in 1999, where he spent most of life since. He currently resides in Varese, Italy.

Career

Early years

He turned professional at the end of 2004, with team Cofidis and became one of the youngest UCI ProTour racers.^[3] As his father is Irish and his mother French, Roche had dual nationality as an amateur. In early 2005, Roche was told by French officials to choose between his two nationalities. Roche declared for France as he was planning to spend the rest of his life in France.^[4] The loss of Roche was a blow to Irish cycling,^[5] as he had won the 2002 Junior Tour of Ireland^[6] and finished third in the 2004 Irish Elite championship.^[7] However, six months later, the UCI and Cycling Ireland told Roche he was given incorrect information, and that he could compete for Ireland and keep his two nationalities, which he did.^[8]

During his first two years, he was often a domestique, but he did get a few good results, mostly in French Cup races. His first win as a professional was a stage in the 2004 Tour de l'Avenir, a race known as a mini-Tour de France for riders under 23.^[9][10] He wore the yellow jersey for two days and finished tenth overall. He was in major breakaway in the 2006 World championships in Salzburg, Austria.^[11] Soon after, he signed a two-year contract with Crédit Agricole on the back of his many good results this season.

In 2007, Roche rode the Giro d'Italia. In June, he won his first Elite national title, the Time Trial in Dungarvan.^[12] He came also fourth in the Road Race Championship. Due to injury, Roche withdrew from the Tour of Ireland and missed the World Championship.

Roche had planned 2008 for the Giro d'Italia but organizers RCS did not invite his team. He changed his schedule, and finished sixth in the Tour Ivoirien de la Paix, 15th in Clásica Internacional de Alcobendas in Spain and won a stage^[13] in GP Internacional Paredes Rota dos Móveis in Portugal. After finishing seventh of the Tour de Wallonie, he competed in the Beijing Olympic road race, teaming with Philip Deignan, won a stage in the Tour du Limousin, and was then picked for his first Vuelta a España. Roche had good performances in the Vuelta, nearly winning stage 18 into Las Rozas, where he was outsprinted by Imanol Erviti after a 17-man breakaway. Roche had three top-ten and ten top-20 stage finishes, finishing a fine 13th in the general classification, during what was only his second Grand Tour.

Roche along with Deignan and Roger Aiken made up the Irish team for the 2008 World Championship in Varese. Roche was in an early crash and retired.

2009

Roche at the 2009 Tour de France

Roche signed a two-year contract with Ag2r-La Mondiale following the disbandment of Crédit Agricole.

After winning the Irish National Road Race Championship for the first time in June 2009, it was announced that Roche had been selected by Ag2r to ride his first Tour de France the following month. He had a fine debut Tour, finishing in 23rd place overall and 5th in the points classification.

He was UCI World Ranked 144th at the end of the 2009 season with 15 points, which helped Ireland to 16th place in the nation rankings.

2010

After a good early season, where he finished tenth in Paris–Nice and fifth in the Volta a Catalunya, Roche was chosen as the leader of the Ag2r-La Mondiale team in the Tour de France and during the race he wrote articles for the Irish Independent newspaper. Roche finished 15th overall. He could have been a few ranks above had he not lost four minutes to the race leaders because of a flat tyre in stage 15, and teammate John Gadret refused to give a wheel to his team leader.

In September, Roche led AG2R at the Vuelta a España. His performance was even better than during the Tour de France, as he was really close to the best climbers of the race, losing very little time in stages with a mountain top finish. He finished seventh overall, only five minutes and three seconds behind overall winner Vincenzo Nibali. This place was the best in a Grand Tour by an Irishman since 1988. The performance lifted him to 32nd in the year end UCI World Rankings with 148 pts. This helped Ireland to 17th place in the nation rankings (254 points).

Roche was part of the three-man Irish team at the 2010 World Championships in December.

2011

Roche at the 2011 Tour de Romandie

Roche's season was hampered by injuries and crashes, particularly by one in the Critérium du Dauphiné^[14] He entered the Tour de France as a team leader again, but quickly realized he had not fully recovered from the crash and could not hope for a good general classification. He got in a number of unsuccessful breaks in the final week, hoping to grab a stage win, and eventually finished 26th overall. He also rode the Vuelta a España, finishing 16th overall.

In October, Roche won the 3rd stage of the inaugural Tour of Beijing.^[15][16] This marked his first international victory in three years and his first ever win on the World Tour. He finished the season world ranked 150th with 19 ranking points, thus helping Ireland to 13th in the nation rankings with 319 points.

Roche published a memoir in 2011 called Inside the Peloton. It won that year's Irish Book Award in the Sports Book category.

2012

Roche showed some form with top-20 finishes in Paris–Nice and the Tour of California. He finished tenth overall in the Tour de Suisse, and second and third respectively in the National Road Race and Time Trial Championships before riding the Tour de France. Roche moved up to seventh overall on the first mountain stage seven which finished on La Planche des Belles Filles. However he lost time over the time trial on stage nine and rest of the mountain stages. On stage 18, Roche broke clear of the peloton in the last 10 km (6.2 mi) with Luis Leon Sanchez. The pair passed the day's breakaway and looked set to contest the stage win only to for Mark Cavendish to sprint past in the final 200 meters. Roche sat 11th overall heading into the time trial on stage 20 and targeted a top ten finish, but a weak time trial saw him drop a place to 12th. Roche, along with Dan Martin and David McCann, represented Ireland in the Olympic Games Road Race. He then rode the Vuelta a Espana where he had a good start and sat seventh overall by the second week of the race. However, he struggled through the last week of the race and dropped down to 12th overall by the end of the race.

On 1 August, it was announced that Roche would leave Ag2r-La Mondiale at the end of the 2012 season, ending an eight-year association with French-registered teams.^[17] He signed a two-year contract with Team Saxo-Tinkoff for the 2013 and 2014 seasons.^[18]

2013

On 25 August, Roche won stage two of the Vuelta a España from a four-man sprint at the end of the 177 km (110.0 mi) stage from Pontevedra to Alto Do Monte Da Groba.^[19][20] Roche held the leaders red jersey after stage 8 and went on to finish fifth overall in the general classification.^[21][22]

Palmarès

Grand Tour general classification results timeline

Grand Tour	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Giro d'Italia	123	—	—	—	—	—	—
Tour de France	—	—	22	14	25	12	40
Vuelta a España	—	13	—	7	16	12	5

References

Further reading

• Roche, Nicolas (2011). Inside the Peloton: My Life as a Professional Cyclist. London: Random House. ISBN 978-1-84827-110-4. Retrieved 1 September 2013. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nicolas Roche.

• Official website
• Nicolas Roche at Cyclingbase.com