Nicolas Roche skips road race championships

With six days to go to the national road race championship programme, the organisers have confirmed almost all of the country’s top riders will take part.

A strong turnout is expected for the Elite men's road race on Sunday week, with defending champion Matt Brammeier and Synergy Baku team-mates Connor McConvey and Philip Lavery to ride, as well as Garmin-Sharp's Dan Martin, Philip Deignan of Sky, 2013 world scratch race champion Martyn Irvine (UnitedHealthcare), Sam Bennett (NetApp Endura), An Post Chainreaction's Connor Dunne and Seán Downey, Felix English (Rapha Condor), plus Madison Genesis duo Peter Hawkins and Dominic Jelfs.

Domestic-based competitors include An Post Rás best county rider Damien Shaw.

The Elite women field will include Mel Spath, Caroline Ryan and Fran Meehan.

Ryan is not yet certain for the road race on Saturday, June 28th.

The time trial championships will take place in Rochfortbridge, while the road races will be held Saturday and Sunday in Multyfarnham.

Together with the veteran competitors, 245 riders have entered thus far; registration will remain open until midnight on Monday.

Absentee

The biggest absentee for the Elite men’s race will be 2007 national time trial and 2009 road race champion Nicolas Roche, for the second year in a row, due to a heavy racing and training programme.

The Tinkoff-Saxo rider competed in the Giro d'Italia and has spent 10 days at altitude to build up towards the Tour de France.

He will line out in the Route du Sud tomorrow and feels that returning for the nationals will give him little time to be ready for the Tour.

“If I had ridden the Giro of my career I would have taken the chance, but unfortunately I don’t want to take the risk for the Tour,” he said. “So I feel I need to race Route du Sud, recover and then get ready for the Tour. Unfortunately this year I am going to have to skip it.

“We are also leaving early for the Tour this year to check out the cobbled stage, and it would be too much to do the nationals.”

Roche will be riding in support of team-mate Alberto Contador in the Tour.

The Spaniard has ridden strongly all year and scored an important psychological blow over the defending Tour champion Chris Froome last week when he dropped him on several occasions during the Critérium du Dauphiné.