NICO ROCHE WILL go in search of his first Tour de France stage victory when he makes his ninth start in the race next month, after the Irish cyclist was named in Team Sunweb’s eight-rider line-up.
The 34-year-old will take to the start line in Brussels on 6 July in what will be his 21st Grand Tour event appearance.
Roche, who was with Team Sky for two seasons, is joined on Team Sunweb by Søren Kragh Andersen, Nikias Arndt, Cees Bol, Chad Haga, Lennard Kämna, Wilco Kelderman and Michael Matthews.
With Dutch star Tom Dumoulin unavailable through injury, the German-based team have had to reassess their strategy for the 2019 edition.
Coach Aike Visbeek explained: “This year our focus at the Tour de France will be to go for stage success throughout the race. We have been in this situation before when we have had to change from a general classification goal to focusing on stage results and I am confident we can do well again.
We’ll have opportunities for good results with Michael in the sprint stages and reduced bunch sprints. Nikias will be our captain and with Giro stage winner Chad, we bring extra power for the both the TTT and TT. With Wilco, Nicholas and Søren we aim for opportunities in the more difficult hilly and mountain stages.
Meanwhile, defending Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas and in-form Egon Bernal will be the joint leaders for this year’s renewal after their team, Ineos, confirmed their line-up.
Shorn of four-time winner Chris Froome following his horrific crash earlier this month, Ineos have opted to share the race leadership duties.
Thomas goes into the race on the back of also having had a crash in June in the Tour de Suisse — though the repercussions were not as serious as in Froome’s case — a race that Colombian rider Bernal confirmed his burgeoning talent by winning.
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Somewhere Phil Kearns is having an absolute meltdown about the unfairness of it all…
Great to see Jaguares win, hope they can follow up next week.
Argentina are 50-1 for the world cup! Insane odds given how well the Jaguares are going. Plus they always underperform in the Rugby Championship cos of the distances they have to travel. Given Ireland are 5-1, this seems pretty long for the Argies.
@Farzad Saadat: Pool C will see a big faller at the 1st. France, England and Argentina will be interesting. You’d think France could be the one to miss out but they’ve been ruthless with their squad selection, brought in O’Gara and you only have to look at 2011 when they had no chance and made the final. England could find themselves in a similar fate to 2015, after a great start under Jones they had an awful run of loses. Argentina always peak at world cup time. Exciting!
@RabidHorizon: Did they bring in O’Gara in the end? I thought that was all just rumours in the end
@Eddie Hekenui: No they didn’t in the end
@Ciaran Twomey: Cheers. Thought I might’ve missed the news he’d taken a role with them.
@Farzad Saadat: Madness considering they have knocked us out of 3 of the last 5 RWCs.
@RabidHorizon: they didn’t bring in O’Gara
@RabidHorizon: France brought in much better coaches than O’Gara, they should get a real boost – Labit and Galthié – they picked the right squad, too. I think England could be the team to miss out..
Brumbies should never have made it to a semi. Awful team but get lucky because of how weak their conference is.
@#JUSTICE4NOEL:
Aussie Rugby is in a bad place right now.
Unreal for the sport!! Makes the competition a whole lot more competitive! Will be interesting to see how far Argentina go at the WC.
@Aaron Tynan: Further than us, I fear.
@Bluepoolroad: draw kinder to them I think than Ireland – SA or NZ is a tough 1/4
The second semi just finished. Cracking game. 30-26 crusaders.
That jaguares kit is lovely
@Eoin Murphy: i wonder where one could buy it?
@Tony Stack: https://www.elverys.ie/elverys/en/search?text=jaguares
Great. When Argentina played in the November series against Ireland. Which i went too. It was the Jaguares team.
Jags play flat and pass wonderfully, it’s great to watch. The crowd was brilliant too.
I think the Crusaders will have too much for them at home, but I’d love to see the Jags win it.
Where’s the final taking place?
@Bluepoolroad: crusaders ground
@Bluepoolroad: Crusaders home stadium in Christchurch, super rugby needs to start playing them in neutral venues, even if it’s in the higher ranked clubs home country. Home stadium advantage is a bit much for a final.
@Con Al: The problem is distances. Say Cape Town was this year’s venue, how many Jaguares and Crusaders supporters are going to make it at a weeks notice? Stadium would be near empty. At least in the current system, one set of supporters see the final and home advantage is based on merit earned during the season. Not perfect, but understandable system