Roche maintains grip on third spot in Vuelta

Ireland’s Nicolas Roche remains third overall at the Vuelta A Espana after finishing safely in the main bunch of yesterday’s 168-kilometre fifth stage from Sober to Lago de Sanabria in the north west of the country.

The SaxoBank-Tinkoff rider crossed the line in 16th position, in the same time as stage winner Michael Matthews (Orica GreenEdge) with Maximiliano Ariel Richeze (Lampre-Merida) and Gianni Meersman (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) rounding out the podium.

Dan Martin (Garmin-SHARP) finished towards the back of the peloton in 79th place and is now 31st overall, 1 minute and 47 seconds behind race leader Vincenzo Nibali (Astana).

The Italian holds a three second lead over Chris Horner (Radioshack-Leopard), with Roche a further five seconds back. The Irishman is still in control of the mountains jersey and will hold onto it today as the sixth stage is a rather flat and trouble-free 177-kilometre run to Caceres, with no categorised climbs.

Meanwhile, An Post-Chainreaction rider, Ronan McLaughlin says he is training “harder than ever” as he targets a place on the Irish team for the World Road Race Championships in Florence next month.

The Donegal strongman says his big focus at the moment is making the An Post team for the upcoming Tour of Britain (September 15-22) but the Worlds are in the back of his mind and he is training as if he will be on the team. “We have four places qualified for Florence and obviously Dan (Martin), Nico (Roche) and Philip (Deignan) should be guaranteed. So that just leaves one place between me and whoever else is up for it,” said McLaughlin.

“Since the Nationals (in June) I’ve been training harder than I ever have before and been so focussed. I’ve been trying to lose weight as well because it’s a hilly course in Florence, so a lot of my training has been based around doing that much climbing over six or seven hours – so I’m preparing as if I am doing it.”