Roche impresses as he rises to second in Spain

Ireland’s Nicolas Roche turned in a brilliant performance on yesterday’s 11th stage of the Vuelta a Espana, finishing sixth in yesterday’s time trial to climb one place into second overall.

The individual time-trial is a discipline that Roche has struggled with in the past, but since moving to new surroundings in the SaxoBank-Tinkoff squad this year, his testing against the clock has been the area where he has shown most improvement.

And he showed that yesterday over the 38-kilometre course around Tarazona, blasting around the course in just under 53 minutes, 1’ 48” seconds slower than stage winner Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack-Leopard).

Roche started the day in third overall and put time into all his rivals except Vincenzo Nibali, who assumed the overall lead.

Nibali (Astana Pro Team) was fourth in 52:25, which lifted him to the top of the general classification as Chris Horner (RadioShack Leopard) finished the stage way back in 20th position (53:54).

Stung by a wasp training on Tuesday, Nibali, who won the Giro d’Italia in May and the 2010 Vuelta, said he feared ths sting could end his race.

“When I woke up this morning I felt terrible and little by little it’s getting better now,” Nibali said.

“I’m just going to defend the lead day by day, not thinking too far ahead. There’s still five really big mountain stages to come.”

Roche gained a very significant 1:06 on Horner, who led the race overall going into yesterday’s hilly stage. Horner had his own woes yesterday though as a bee got into his mouth. “It was disturbing and scary. I couldn’t get it out. I also tried to swallow it. Eventually, I coughed it up,” Horner said.

Roche now trails Nibali by 33 seconds overall but won’t be overly concerned by that margin as he has dropped the former Vuelta winner a couple of times already over the course of this year’s race.

In third place overall now, some 13 seconds behind Roche, is Alejandro Valverde (Movistar). Horner is fourth on the same time as the Spaniard but after that pair, the gaps are very large.

While there is a long way still to go (the race concludes Sunday week) with some gruelling climbing remaining, Roche should attain his pre-race aim of a top five placing when the race ends.

He is looking very good for a podium finish and while he has sometimes struggled in the closing stages of Grand Tours, he is still in with a chance of winning the race overall.