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.

“It made more sense for me to go to the mountains because as a domestique for Mikel Landa I felt I’d be better served training specifically for the climbs.

“The time-trial was short and I’m not going to win the race so it wasn’t imperative for me to work on that, like it would be for Landa.”

Landa was 67th on the stage and is 40 seconds behind the race leader.

Today’s stage takes the riders on a flat 190-kilometre stage from Arnheim to Nijmegen where a bunch sprint is the expected outcome.

Meanwhile, with just over two weeks to go to the start of the An Post Rás, one of the strongest teams for the race was announced yesterday.

The New Zealand national team will travel to Ireland for the eight-day event which gets underway from Dublin Castle on Sunday May 22nd.

Their team for this year is led by one of the most decorated Kiwi riders of all time, with Hayden Roulston leading their assault on the overall.

The 35-year old multiple national champion, who raced with Cervélo Test Team, HTC Highroad, Radioshack Nissan and Trek Factory Racing in the past, spearheads a team of young guns that includes Regan Gough, Dylan Kennett, Pieter Bulling and Nick Kergozou.

Elsewhere, Irish national road race champion Damien Shaw and Connor McConvey were lucky to avoid serious injury in the Fleche du Sud in Luxembourg yesterday.

A crash after 10 kilometres saw almost a dozen riders hospitalised but the An Post Chainreaction duo managed to avoid the carnage.

The stage was cancelled and will re-start today.