Nicolas Roche’s Vuelta challenge fades in Andorra heat

Nicolas Roche’s hopes of bettering his best performance in a Grand Tour are over for another year after he lost over 14 minutes on a hellishly hard day in Andorra.

The Team Sky man came into yesterday’s 11th stage of the race well-poised in fourth place, just over a minute back on race leader Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin).

However, when the Irishman became distanced from a select group of favourites in the latter half of the race his ambitions disappeared like those he was trying to cling onto the back of.