Roche rues moving day woes

NICOLAS ROCHE’S goal of a top-10 finish in this year’s Tour de France is over after a nightmare day on Saturday when he conceded almost seven minutes to his main rivals and dropped back from 11th to 18th on the overall classification.

The term ‘moving day’ is one derived from golf and describes the often decisive Saturday of a tournament which sees a seismic shift in the leaderboard — and the 14th stage of this year’s Tour had been billed as that day since the route was announced back in October of last year.

All the general classification contenders came to the fore — and sadly, Roche wasn’t amongst them as he was dropped on the final climb of the Plateau de Beille in the Pyrenees, unable to keep pace with some of the more established Grand Tour riders.