Roche falls just short of maiden Tour stage victory

Nicolas Roche came agonisingly close to winning his first ever stage of the Tour de France yesterday but was overhauled in the closing metres before the finishing line in Brive-la-Gaillarde by Team Sky’s fast-man Mark Cavendish.

Roche, aiming to break into the top 10 overall and take Ireland’s first stage win in the race for 20 years, launched an audacious attack from nine kilometres out to jump across to a small breakaway group that had been up the road for most of the day.

The Irish rider had Andrea Kloden (Radioshack-Nissan) and Luis Leon Sanchez (Rabobank) in his slipstream but neither appeared too keen on sharing the workload in forging a meaningful gap to the peloton behind.