Roche junior has a lot to live up to 30 years on from dad’s crowning glory

CYCLING: It’s just a month shy of 30 years ago that Stephen Roche completed a remarkable cycling Triple Crown adding the 1987 World Championship to the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia titles he’d won earlier in the year. And while son Nicolas will line-up for today’s 277km road race in Bergen (Norway), alongside cousin Dan Martin, Ryan Mullen, Conor Dunne, Sean McKenna and Damien Shaw, it’s unlikely that we’ll see the Tricolour raised in celebration afterwards.

Roche junior (right), has had a good week so far, expressing his satisfaction with a 12th place finish (his ‘best ever’) in Thursday’s individual time trial but yesterday was said to be less than 100 per cent ready to go again. Martin, meanwhile, will likely have a go at some point but despite the inclusion of a number of small climbs (ranging from 50m to 2.5km) on each circuit, the terrain ultimately may not compliment match his obvious attributes.

The technical course is expected to suit the likes of Matteo Trentin (Italy), Greg van Avermaet (Belgium), Michael Matthers (Australia) and holder Peter Sagan (Slovakia) best, but hope springs eternal that Martin can get the big win his efforts have deserved.

Lydia Boylan, meanwhile, was out of luck in yesterday’s women’s road race and didn’t finish. Afterwards, she tweeted: ‘Not a whole lot I can be proud of today. But super proud of my road season this year and so proud to finish it wearing the Irish jersey!’

The race was won by Dutch champion Chantal Blaak who recovered from a crash to break away from a group of seven leading riders in the last of eight 19.1-km.

‘When I was down on the floor I thought my race was over. I hoped to come back and work for the team but never expected this,’ she said.