Solid start for Nicolas Roche in Giro time trial

Nicolas Roche had an encouraging start to the Giro d’Italia yesterday when he posted a time of 11 minutes 33 seconds for the opening stage of the three-week race.

The Irishman was 32nd on the 9.8km individual time-trial which started in the Dutch city of Apeldoorn, 30 seconds behind winner and the first pink jersey wearer of the race Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin). Roche’s Sky teammate and fellow Irishman Philip Deignan was 17th, 50 seconds down on Dutchman Dumoulin.

The former admitted he hadn’t done much work on the time-trial bike in advance of yesterday as he was only told he’d be doing the race six weeks ago and he opted to train in the mountains in Italy as opposed to refining his position.