Nicolas Roche (Saxo-Tinkoff) saw his best laid schemes come to naught in the Vuelta a España today. The Irishman had planned an attack on today’s summit finish, but his plan faltered as his team mates didn’t manage to drag him onto the final kilometre. Instead Joaquím Rodriguez launched a powerful and unanswerable attack to solo across the finish line for a splendid stage win.

After the stage Roche said he would have to debrief with his team mates to work out what went wrong today. He also looked forward to tomorrow’s dreaded Angliru climb with some trepidation.

“It was a perfect finish for me but the attack we planned didn’t work. I was hoping to be dragged till 1km to go and try from there. I’m disappointed. We’ll debrief and start all over again tomorrow. The Angliru gave me mixed feelings in the past. It was good in 2008 but bad in 2011. It’s a very tough climb. It’s one of those stages where anything can happen.”

Roche currently lies fifth overall, trailing race leader Chris Horner (RadioShack-Leopard) by 3'49".