Nicolas Roche has had a solid season so far which has seen him rise to 40th in the UCI rider rankings. He’s had eleven top 10 finishes which include stages which finished in a bunch sprint and much more mountainous stages. He is proving his ability on a wide range of terrain. He placed 8th, 6th, 4th and 3rd on stages in Paris-Nice back in March, he also finished 9th, 8th, 6th and 3rd on stages in the hilly Volta a Catalunya where he also finished 5th overall. In addition, he took a 3rd place at the Swiss one day race, the GP dell’Insubria. But, unlike his compatriots Martin and Deignan he is still missing a big win on his palmarés.

Dan Martin won the Route du Sud in 2008, while Deignan took the biggest Irish win for 18 years by taking a stage of the Vuelta a Espana last year. Roche has had no such luck, despite remaining the most consistent of the three, so far he hasn’t got the wins that this consistency deserves. On Stage 1 of this week’s Tour of Romandie, he again took a top 10 placing, finishing 3rd behind Francesco Gavazzi and the increasingly impressive Peter Sagan. Roche is getting closer and you’d have to feel that the big win is only just around the corner.

His performance in Paris-Nice showed a remarkable consistency, only finishing outside the top 20 on one of the seven road stages. It could be said that Roche may be wasting energy by trying to be competitive on both the sprint and mountain stages. Roche is considered an outside favourite for the overall at the Tour of Romandie. Perhaps he would be better served leaving the bunch sprints alone and saving his energy to race against his G.C. rivals on the mountain stages later in the week. After all, we didn’t see the likes of Kreuziger, Valverde or Menchov battling out in the bunch sprint today. But this would be going against his instincts and betraying his competitive urge to rack up his first Pro Tour win. Perhaps he’s taking a leaf out of his father’s book…

When Stephen Roche won the Tour of Romandie in 1983, the first time he competed in the race, he didn’t win a stage but managed placings of 2nd, 3rd and 5th. The 2nd place was earned on the flat first stage, when he broke away from the bunch with Gerard Veldscholten. Roche lost the two man sprint for the stage and the prospect of the leader’s jersey to the Dutchman but the pair finished almost a minute and a half ahead of the bunch which left Roche perfectly poised to take the jersey when the race reached the mountains. This opportunity came on the hilly stage 3 when Italian Mario Beccia soloed home for the stage win with the Aussie Phil Anderson close behind in 2nd place. But right by Anderson’s side as he crossed the finish line was Stephen Roche. The pair finished just ahead of Grand Tour big hitters Roberto Visentini, Giovanni Battaglin and Lucien van Impe, but Roche had done enough to take the leader’s yellow jersey. Roche’s 5th place stage finish came on the final stage time trial where Phil Anderson in 2nd place overall was aiming to overcome a 51 second deficit to take the overall win. However Roche’s strength in the time trial was evident on the day when he beat Anderson by 4 seconds, slightly extending his overall lead and claiming his first Tour of Romandie.

Stephen Roche finished in the top 10 on a flat stage, a mountains stage and a time trial displaying his all round strength. He took this strength to another level the following year in 1984. He again didn’t win a stage but on his way to victory he took two 2nd places in the two time trials, along with 5th, 6th and 9th on road stages. He left the Tour of Romandie that year as only the second rider to win the race in two consecutive years. Reigning Tour de France champion Laurent Fignon won the opening prologue with Roche finishing just behind him. Roche followed this up with a solid performance in the mountains knowing he had the safety net of the final time trial to fall back on.

He finished in close proximity to all the subsequent stage winners, all of whom were really strong riders: Robert Millar, winner of stage 2, would go on to win the King of the Mountains jersey at the Tour that year. Bernard Vallet, winner of stage 3, won the polka dot jersey himself in 1982. Laurent Fignon, the redoubtable Frenchman and winner of stage 4 was in the midst of back to back overall victories at the Tour de France. Finally, Johan van der Velde was the winner of Stage 5a, a former winner of the Tour of Romandie, a winner of the White jersey at the 1980 Tour, and would go on to be a triple winner of the points competition at the Giro d’Italia.

After these stages, Roche remained in 2nd place on G.C., trailing the Scot Robert Millar by 10 seconds. However, Millar was not noted for his time trialling ability, the immediate threat to Roche’s chances at defending his crown came from the Swiss rider Jean-Marie Grezet who lay only 17 seconds behind the Irishman.  Grezet’s performance in the final time trial was enough to win the stage and beat Roche into 2nd place on the day by 20 seconds. But when bonus seconds were allotted, the pair found themselves exactly level on time after 6 days of racing. Roche was awarded the victory due to his superior stage placings throughout the week.

Even though Roche finished in the same group as Grezet on many of the stages, his willingness to battle to the front of the group to take a higher placing ultimately resulted in the overall victory. In an interesting aside, Grezet would also go on to finish 2nd that year on Stage 18 of the Tour de France. A stage which finished at La Plagne and which was won by Laurent Fignon. In 1987, Fignon would again win a Tour mountain stage to La Plagne, but that stage was more famous for the Tour winning heroics of Stephen Roche. The man from Dundrum would go on to win the Tour of Romandie again in his amazing year of 1987, no other rider has ever won this race three times.

Perhaps Nicolas Roche is aware of the tale of the 1984 Tour of Romandie. While I’m not suggesting that the overall may come down to a count-back on stage placings this year, I would be happier to see him at the front of the race all week than sitting anonymously in the bunch. He currently lies in 10th place overall with the hardest stages still to come. I applaud his swashbuckling attitude to racing and if he remains this consistent, a big victory will most certainly come his way…unlike Jean-Marie Grezet, who never won a major stage race in his career, and would never again come as close.

I like dopers to be repentant. I like dopers to be apologetic. I like when dopers decide to retire. I would like dopers to sod off! But when they choose not to, when they serve their two year suspensions and return to cycling, I like when they maintain a low profile and not perform at any where the level they were before their suspension, thereby proving to me that they are not as good as they were when they were doping which may result in a belief that they are in fact riding clean now. Alexandre Vinokourov has done none of these things.

The Kazakh rider was thrown out of the 2007 Tour de France where he was found to be blood doping. He was subsequently banned for a year (which eventually was rightly extended to two years), a ban which ended last summer. He never admitted to any wrong-doing and as such, he never apologised to anyone. Initially he did retire, but then thought better of it and instead started planning his comeback with an Astana team which was originally built for him, but had since evolved having been taken over by Johan Bruyneel. At the Vuelta a Espana last year Vinokourov did return to racing with Astana, despite the protestations of Bruyneel.

He has had some modest success upon his return, winning a time trial stage of the Tour de l’Ain, the Asian Time Trial Championships and the Chrono des Nations along with the overall at the four day Giro del Trentino stage race last week. But last Sunday he won one of cycling’s five monument classics Liége-Bastogne-Liége, a race he won previously in 2005. In doing so he has unashamedly announced his return to the top of the sport of cycling. In recent times, this is the biggest victory by a rider returning from a lengthy doping ban.

We have come to expect returning dopers to struggle to find a top team willing to sign them. Thereafter, they also usually struggle to rack up any decent results. As an example, take the highest profile doper around, Floyd Landis. ‘Winner’ of the Tour in 2006, shortly after he tested positive for synthetic testosterone and was handed a two year suspension. Two years later after a lengthy legal battle, Landis found himself riding on the American domestic circuit for the OUCH team. Landis’ performances have been paltry compared to the doping-powered form he displayed in winning the Tour de France. His best result since returning to racing was probably a 2nd place in the recent Tour of the Battenkill. Two riders implicated in Operation Puerto in 2006 were Francisco Mancebo and Oscar Sevilla, both of whom have also had careers which have spiralled downwards. Both are previous winners of the Tour de France young rider classification but have recently been part of the Rock Racing team, again achieving very little on the American domestic circuit.

Alexandre Vinokourov celebrating as the oldest ever winner of Liége-Bastogne-Liége

The highest profile doping case next to Landis and Vinokourov is that of Michael Rasmussen who was fired by his team while clad in yellow at the 2007 Tour de France. He was suspended for two years but returned to racing last October and is now with the Continental level Miche team. He is yet to win a race since his comeback and his results have been nowhere near indicative of a potential Tour winner.

All of the above riders have displayed what is expected of returning dopers, a significant drop in performance level from their pre-ban racing days. However, it must be noted that each of these riders is now at a team which is no longer competing at the top level. Budgets are lower, training plans are less sophisticated, racing schedules are less attractive and as a result perhaps there is a lack of motivation (especially when attempting to ride clean!). Unlike Landis, Rasmussen etc., Ivan Basso is a rider returning from a suspension who did manage to sign for a Pro Tour level team. In fact, Liquigas broke an agreement with the other Pro Tour teams to sign Basso, an agreement which stated that no Pro Tour team would sign a returning doper until four years after his suspension began. Until last week, Basso was the returning doper with the most impressive set of results. He is yet to win a race since 2006, but last year he finished 4th in both the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana. Although it is comforting to know that he is nowhere near the pre-ban form which saw him dominate the 2006 Giro.

Vinokourov is providing us with no such comfort. He will now be forever in the history books as the unrepentant cheat who won Liége-Bastogne-Liége in 2010. With this victory, coupled with his refusal to acknowledge any prior wrong doing, Vinokourov has raised plenty of debate as to whether any of these riders should be allowed to race again at all.

What are we to believe? That he doped before but he isn’t doping now? How is he winning one of the sport’s biggest races if he doped then but isn’t doping now? Let’s not forget that he is almost three years older now than when we saw him drag the 2007 Tour in to the muck. Despite this fact, at the age of 36 he has now become the oldest ever winner of Liége-Bastogne-Liége (I think, ’tis quite tricky to pin down birthdays for all the pre-war winners, but he certainly is the oldest post-war winner). He has also become the oldest winner of any monument classic since a 38 year-old Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle won Paris-Roubaix in 1993. These facts do not fill me with confidence that Vino is now riding clean.

Or are we supposed to believe that he was clean in 2005 when he won his first Liége-Bastogne-Liége and he is clean now? After all, this is what the records show. He didn’t fail a dope test until 2007. Perhaps doping during the 2007 Tour was an effort to convert himself from exciting all rounder who could win a classic and challenge for a podium of a Grand Tour, to genuine Tour de France favourite. Or perhaps his blood transfusion at the Tour was a decision made on a whim after he had a nasty crash and needed a booster for a time trial next day? Or, should we believe that he was doping in 2005, he was doping in 2007 and he is still doping now?

I’m inclined to believe that he is a slíabhín and is still doping. As cynical as it may sound, winning a monument classic after a two year ban at the age of 36 just seems far too implausible. He should be performing at a lower level than we’re used to, instead he seems to be the same old Vino we’ve always known and all signs point to him being a serious contender at the Giro next month. He hasn’t apologised for doping in 2007 nor has he acknowledged any wrong-doing thus far. Having watched Gilbert and Evans take well deserved victories (what can we do but assume they are clean?), watching Vinokourov win on Sunday has left me disgruntled and with a sour taste in my mouth. Should dopers be allowed to come back to the sport at all? I’m not in favor of lifetime bans, but surely the least we could get is an apology?

He launched a winning solo attack on the final lap of a testing World Road Race circuit, his rivals all looked at each other, one half wondering whether they could summon the energy required to chase him down, while the other half were left watching the race winning move wondering whether their eyes were deceiving them. He launched another solo break on Stage 5 of the Tour Down Under, he was eventually caught and accompanied to the finish line by Luis Léon Sanchez, Alejandro Valverde and Peter Sagan, but on what remains one of the most exciting days of racing this season, it was his attack that sparked the race into life. He has now just won the first classic of his career at Fléche Wallonne beating Joaquim Rodriguez and Alberto Contador in an uphill battle to the top of the Mur de Huy. At age 33, Cadel Evans is in danger of becoming one of the most exciting riders in the peloton.

After two relatively anonymous seasons from Alessandro Ballan last year and Paolo Bettini in 2008, it is fantastic to again see the rainbow jersey of World Champion winning a major race and challenging the world’s other top riders. Evans is one of only five men along with Ferdi Kubler, Rik van Steenbergen, Eddy Merckx and Claude Criquielion to have won Fléche Wallonne while wearing the rainbow jersey. Since Claude Criquielion’s Fléche Wallonne victory in 1985, there have been only five riders who have won any classic as reigning World Champion. In 2006, Tom Boonen won the Tour of Flanders and Paolo Bettini won the Tour of Lombardy, both as World Champions. In 1998, Oscar Camenzind won the Tour of Lombardy and in 1987 Moreno Argentin outfoxed Criquielion and Stephen Roche to win Liége-Bastogne-Liége while wearing the Rainbow Jersey.

World Champion Cadel Evans celebrates winning Fléche Wallonne, his first ever classics victory.

Much is made of the ‘Curse of the Rainbow Jersey‘ where a World Champion of has a stinker of a season while clad in the revered jersey. One of the contributing factors toward this unfortunate affliction is the instant recognition that the jersey bestows upon the wearer. It is surely embedded in the minds of other racers that the Rainbow Jersey is a threat to the race winning chances of others. Attacks by the World Champion are marked more diligently and are chased down quicker. ‘You can’t let him get up the road, he was good enough to win the Worlds!’. This mindset stifles the current World Champion’s race winning aspirations which makes any victories earned even harder to attain than usual. Along with the extra media pressure and public relations obligations that can fatigue a rider, this is the root cause of ‘The Curse’.

Cadel Evans is now laughing in the face of this curse. The World Road Race Championship in Mendrisio last September was the first one day win of his career, he has now just won his second at Fléche Wallonne. Having come close to victory in the past two years (2nd in 2008, 5th in 2009) the Aussie got things spot on last Wednesday. He never panicked and attempted to accelerate more than was necessary or beyond his capabilities. He bided his time, waited until all in front of him were spent (as happened to him in 2008 and 2009) and smoothly sped past the leaders to take the victory, although his victory salute was not so smooth. Evans now joins the likes of Andy Schleck, Lance Armstrong, Tony Rominger and Bjarne Riis as a rider who has won a classic and finished on the podium of the Tour de France.

This coming Sunday is Liége-Bastogne-Liége, the final Ardennes classic and the oldest classic of them all. ‘La Doyenne’ is over 50km longer than Fléche Wallonne and was won last year by Andy Schleck with a solo break from 20km out. This year, Amstel Gold and Fléche Wallonne have seen bunches of 20 and 60 riders respectively, amass at the foot of the final climb where a chaotic sprint to the top ensued. I daresay that the race on Sunday will not follow this pattern. What is more likely is that a group of 5 or 10 riders will get away on the Côte de la Redoute (with 35km to go) or on the Côte de la Roche aux Faucons (with 20km to go) and a rider will jump away solo from that group before the finish. Before the relatively new Amstel Gold race was conceived, winning Fléche Wallonne and Liége-Bastogne-Liége was known as the Ardennes double. Over the years, six riders have achieved the Ardennes double, Ferdie Kubler (twice, back-to-back), Stan Ockers, Eddy Merckx, Moreno Argentin, Davide Rebellin and Alejandro Valverde. Evans will be hoping he can add his name to this list come Sunday.

The Schleck brothers celebrating after Andy won Liége-Bastogne-Liége last year.

He’ll be facing stiff opposition from his former team mate and winner of Amstel Gold, Phillipe Gilbert, former winner Alejandro Valverde, Tour champion Alberto Contador and both of the Schleck brothers, Damiano Cunego and Joaquin Rodriguez should also be there or thereabouts again.

So far in the Ardennes classics, Frank and Andy Schleck have been frustrating to watch. Both have looked very strong but as yet, neither have threatened the podium places. To me, their tactics have seemed questionable and they seem far to preoccupied with what the other is doing instead of concentrating on victory. In my view, if a team has two riders capable of victory, one of whom finds himself in the leading breakaway, the team can do one of two things:

1. The rider in front contributes to the breakaway effort with the hope of reaching the finish before the peloton, while the rider behind (along with the rest of the team) doesn’t do any chasing and can even attempt to disrupt any efforts by other teams at getting a chase organised.

   or….

2. The rider in front decides to sit on and not contribute to the breakaway in the knowledge that he has a team mate behind more capable of winning. However, this decision by the rider in the leading group should only be acceptable if his team mates in the peloton are contributing to the chase behind in an effort to get their other rider back to the front of the race.

The Schlecks however, seem to be wanting the best of both worlds. For instance, Frank attacks and due to his reputation, the attack gets marked and a break forms. But then Frank in front sits on because he won’t work against Andy behind, while Andy behind sits on because he won’t work against Frank in front. This tactic is bizarre and counter-productive and will get them nowhere. In my opinion, Andy has looked the stronger of the two this week, and all effort should be channeled into ensuring he can be put in the best position to retain his title.

The Irish have a rich history in this race. Seán Kelly is a double winner having won in 1984 and 1989. He also finished in the top 10 a further three times, and appeared in the top 20 on a further four occasions. Stephen Roche finished in the top 10 on five occasions including 3rd in 1985 and 2nd in 1987, on both occasions losing out to the Italian Moreno Argentin. The third of the old Irish trio Martin Earley managed two top 10 finishes in 1988 and 1989. The new Irish trio of Roche Jnr., Martin and Deignan will all be on the start line this Sunday. Dan Martin will be the most likely of the three to figure during the business end of the race. He finished in a solid 18th place at Fléche Wallonne and also has an 8th place to his name in cycling’s other hilly monument classic, the Tour of Lombardy. Roche could also feature but he has admitted that he is better suited to Fléche Wallonne where he took 30th place. Deignan did not finish on Wednesday, nor did he finish Amstel Gold where he was hampered by mechanical problems. The Donegal man will be hoping for a better showing this Sunday where he’ll most likely be riding at the service of his team mate and former Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre. Enjoy the race on Sunday folks as it’s the last Spring classic of the year!