Roche pleased to contribute to Sky success

One of the main reasons for Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas’s 1-2 for Team Sky in the Paris-Nice summit finish on Thursday was the work done for them on the climb by Lars Petter Nordhaug and Nicolas Roche. Roche has told Sticky Bottle that despite not being at his top level, he feels ready to chase down anyone that threatens Thomas and Porte’s GC positions.

“I was happy because I’m in better condition now than I have been at this time in other years. The start of the year is never my real goal; I always feel it takes me a while to get going.”

“So it’s good to be able to help and give the maximum to the team even though I’m not at 100 per cent.”

He spoke on the tactics that the team had outlined during the pre-stage briefing that morning, saying that he and his teammates executed it to perfection.

“We had planned to get me to 5k to go and then I had a couple of kilometres on my own to put the pressure on as much as possible.”

“G said he wanted to give it a go in the last 3k before the finish so I knew I had to try and go as quickly as possible to try and run down the other team leaders so when he goes it’s going to be the battle among the overall team contenders (to chase).”

He has full confidence that his two teammates can survive Saturday and Sunday’s final two hard days and finish in good GC positions, with a win overall the goal for one of the two men.

“I believe Richie and G are up there and I believe and hope they can make it on Sunday but the hard bit will be keeping them out of trouble the next two days.”