Nicolas Roche expects pain in Spain on Vuelta’s toughest day

Nicolas Roche is bracing himself for one of the hardest stages of a Grand Tour in his professional career today when the 11th stage of the Vuelta A Espana sees the riders tackle over 5,000 metres of climbing en route to a summit finish in Andorra.

The stage has long been billed as the day where the real contenders will come to the fore and with solid climbing from the drop of the flag, anyone on a bad day can expect to see their chances of winning the race ended.

It’s been a difficult couple of days for Roche as he crashed on Sunday and Monday and slipped out of the top three overall.