Vuelta a España - Nicolas Roche: I didn't plan to go on the descent
Aug 29 2017 11:29 pm CET
Photo of Nicolas Roche © Mary Cárdenas / CyclingPub.com
Nicolas Roche of BMC Racing Team gained 29 seconds on his general classification riders after a strong move on the final descent of stage 10 in the Vuelta a España.
The Irish rider first neutralized an attack by Bahrain-Merida's Vincenzo Nibali and then went solo in an attempt to get some seconds on his rivals.
"It was a good day," he told Eurosport. "It wasn't really planned to go on the descent until I saw Vincenzo opening a gap. I tried to get around the other GC riders and came back to Vinzenco. Then I opened up a little bit of a gap and told myself 'let's go and see what happens'.
"I wasn't planning on dropping them. I wanted to go as fast as possible obviously but I saw that there were a few gaps behind the four or five of us so initially when I accelerated I was just hoping that some of the riders that were behind were not gonna come back and take advantage on the descent. Then I went a bit crazier and said 'alright, let's just go'.
"Today on the climb the pace was quite high and everybody was still kind of there until the last kilometer where Vincenzo gave it a proper attack. There are 10 to 12 riders who are at a very similar level. Today was a good day and now recover for tomorrow's hard day."
Roche remains in third position in the overall standings but now shares the time of Esteban Chaves of Orica-Scott. Both riders are just 36 seconds behind race leader Chris Froome of Team Sky.
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