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).