Nicolas Roche proved that he is ready for the Worlds when he finished fifth in the Tour of Britain. However, his Tinkoff-Saxo team was slightly disappointed as only a few seconds separated the Irishman from a spot on the podium.

Stage 8 of Tour of Britain featured two stages - an 8.8 kilometer long time trial through the streets of the great city of London and a circuit race covering 88 kilometers also in the beautiful capital of England. After the time trial, Tinkoff-Saxo’s Nicolas Roche dropped to 5th overall and wasn’t able to improve his position in the afternoon. The stage was concluded in a massive bunch sprint where Nikolay Trusov finished 8th.

Tinkoff-Saxo’s Manuele Boaro has played a very active role in this year’s Tour of Britain and he was in several breakaway attempts from the very beginning of the final stage. However, there were no Tinkoff-Saxo riders in the longest lasting breakaway consisting of four riders.
 
Eventually, the escapees were swept up and Tinkoff-Saxo went to the front of the pack and picked up the pace in the final 5 kilometers and Nikolay Trusov was in a perfect position with 500 meters to go. But in the final corner, he lost ground to the other sprinters and Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) took the stage win ahead of Mark Cavendish (Omega-Pharma Quick Step).

Tinkoff-Saxo's Nicolas Roche finished 5th overall. Dylan Van Baarle (Garmin-Sharp) won the race.

Sports director Lars Michaelsen had these comments on the finish line.

"I think overall, the team have done a great job supporting Nicolas throughout the race and finishing second in the team classification underlines the strength and effort the boys have put in to the race. Finishing fifth overall is not a bad result at all but I had hoped for more and with a little luck, Nico would have been on the podium as it was eventually only a matter of seconds. Today, we supported Nikolay for the sprint but he lost his position in the train on the final few hundred meters to finish 8th."