CYCLING:Nicolas Roche showed he is recovering after completing the Tour of Italy when he and his Crédit Agricole squad raced to a solid eighth in the Eindhoven team time trial ProTour race yesterday, writes Shane Stokes.
The French outfit was exactly one minute behind CSC at the end of the 48.6 kilometre test.
"I'm pretty happy with how it went," Roche said. "We did some special training beforehand on the time trial bikes."
He is flying back to Ireland today in advance of the national time trial championships in Waterford on Friday and the road race championships on Sunday.
"I've been resting a bit since the Giro," he said. "I finished it and got 13th on a stage but it didn't go as well as I was hoping.I thought I would be going better in the mountains. I think that I probably hit form too early - I was going very well a few weeks before the race."
Roche will also take part in the Tour of Ireland in August.
MOTOR SPORT: The overall results of the Carrick-On-Suir MC's Ravens Rock Rally remain provisional following the exclusion of Michael Barrable and Dermot O'Gorman, writes Brian Foley.
The organisers have excluded Barrable and O'Gorman from first in the overall results for failing to stop at the scene of the Patrick Elliott and Paul Goodman accident on the penultimate stage. Barable and O'Gorman have appealed the decision.
Barrable had won the incident-filled rally in Co Kilkenny, round six of the Dunlop National Rally Championship, finishing the eight-stage event 47 seconds ahead of championship leader, Aaron MacHale, both in Ford Focus WRC's Denis Cronin (Subaru WRC) was third - 20 seconds further behind. Patrick Elliott (Subaru WRC) and Glenn Allen (Toyota Corolla WRC) both crashed out.
The Group N category was decided on the final stage with Michael Curran (Mitsubishi) edging out the similar car of Seamus Leonard by three seconds. The two-wheel drive award was won by Welshman John Dalton who finished seventh overall in a Darrian.
On the second stage Glenn Allen crashed heavily, but neither himself or co-driver, Damien Connolly were hurt.
Both Liam McCarthy and Kevin Kelleher withdrew at the service near Callan, McCarthy's Subaru developed an electrical problem while Kelleher's car had a blown head gasket.
National Rally Championship (Provisional standings after Round 6): 1 A MacHale 94 pts; 2 N Maguire 83; 3 G Allen 75; 4 M Barrable 74; 5 K Barrett 73; 6 P Elliott 68; 7 M Curran 66; 8 S Leonard 58.
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