Roche takes his second win as a pro in Portugal Nicholas Roche took the win on the first stage of the four day GP Internacional Paredes Rota dos Móveis race in Portugal yesterday. The son of former world champion and Tour de France champ Stephen Roche, the 23 year old Irishman has steadily improved over the years, and feels comfortable in the Credit Agricole system, after having ridden for Cofidis the past two seasons.
Roche hasn't won many races as a pro, and his win in Portugal was only his second ever victory. Still, expectations are high for the youngster as he continues to improve his cycling skills. He is without a doubt the leading Irish cyclist today, and has shown consistency and grit throughout his first two years of being a professional. Whether he'll join cycling's elite one day though is a long way off, and Roch has much to prove.
Credit Agricole has developed young riders before, as the Australian Stuey O'Grady debuted in the green and white kit, as did a young American named Saul Raisen. Once a very promising young pro, Raisen suffered a horrible crash that ended his career, and almost his life. One other excellent pro that came up in the Credit Agricole system is Jens Voigt. The tireless German spent six years on the French team, and took a huge win at the Dauphine Libere stage race in 2001. Hopefully, when he looks back on his career in ten to fifteen years, Roche will have a palmares similar to Jens. If so, he'll be able to call his career an overwhelming success.
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1 comments:
Good article!
Here is a more little CA trivia:
CA also was the team that brought Boardman to the peloton and was the team (it was sponsored by Z but still was a Legeay team) Greg LeMond joined after winning the tour in 1989 with ADR. He went on to win 1990 under Legeay. Duclosse-Lasalle had some of his best results in the autumn of his career (although he did win the Pernod Cup in the 80's which was the predecessor to the world Cup, Paris Roubaix was his biggest win). And you can not forget super Thor: he has only really ridden for CA as well.
Pellizotti (pink jersey wearer for a wee bit this year at the Giro) also rode in the green and white. Also Henk Vogels got his feet wet in Europe racing with Stuart O'Grady. What strikes me most about CA is the number of disapointments they have had over the years with hiring big names that never really lived up tothe hype: Moreau( came to CA under a cloud after the Festina crap), Julich was brought on as a true tour contender (he complanied they were not pro enough) and to a lesser extent Boardman.
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