No Tour de France for Nicolas Roche

For the first time since 2008, Nicolas Roche will not be in the Tour de France as Team Sky overlooked the Irishman for this year’s race which gets underway on Sunday week.

And there was more bad news for followers of Irish cycling as his team-mate Philip Deignan also missed out while four-time national road race champion Matt Brammeier (Dimension Data) didn’t make the cut either.

It means that only GC hopeful Dan Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) and stage hunter Sam Bennett (Bora-Argon 18) will fly the flag this year.