Tour of Beijing Stage 3 - Warning contains spoiler information

RobFowl

Stage 3 just finished

The Crunch

Oops! Think I may have broken some sort of rule so I took the link out! Very excited...

For those who may be interested the Tour of Beijing is on Eurosport again at 12.30pm...

RobFowl

Ag2r La Mondiale leader Nicolas Roche has turned around what has been a largely frustrating season for him by grabbing the first-ever WorldTour win of his career on day three of the Tour of Beijing. The 27 year old finished first into Yong Ning, outsprinting his compatriot Philip Deignan (RadioShack) to the line.

Read more: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/10020/Roche-and-Deignan-take-Irish-one-two-on-queen-stage-of-Tour-of-Beijing.aspx#ixzz1a5Cu5zEU

Chips Lovell

An Irish one-two. This is all kinds of awesome.

Beasty

Thread title changed - now stage specific, and I'm removing the spoiler tags

elduggo

yeeehaaaaaa
Roche will need a new edition of his book so he has more than just those junior wins to be talking about

I'm secretly disappointed that Deignan didn't take the win though. I've huge admiration for that guy

morana

and its great for ranking points for the Olympics

ednwireland

sounds like the highlights will be worth watching (8pm tonight eurosport)

great stuff

also ag2r were struggling to stay in the protour as they had so few ranking points this year, cant do deignan and roches confidence any harm either

ah theres the article
Ag2r fighting to earn continued proteam status
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ag2r-fighting-to-earn-continued-proteam-status

Chips Lovell

Delighted for Roche. He's had a miserable season and this goes some way towards rescuing it. Been a while since he's had a win too. I suspect it'll do his confidence a world of good.

RobFowl

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

Delighted for Roche. He's had a miserable season and this goes some way towards rescuing it. Been a while since he's had a win too. I suspect it'll do his confidence a world of good.

A stage in the Tour of Limosin 2008 was his last win !!

Chips Lovell

RobFowl wrote: »

A stage in the Tour of Limosin 2008 was his last win !!

National Championships 2009 I believe.

RobFowl

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

National Championships 2009 I believe.

Wasn't counting domestic races

dastardly00

WOOOHOOO well done Nico!

elduggo

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

National Championships 2009 I believe.

he got a top 10 in the Stephen Roche GP in Meadowmount one year.

Thats almost as good as winning the national champs

Decuc500

Fantastic result! Very happy for Roche. It's great to see Deignan doing well also. Hopefully next season as a team leader Deignan will have more good results.

Hail 2 Da Thief

RobFowl

seven stars

Great news. I thought he was done for the season!

Morrisseeee

Live on Eurosport now, if you have a Sky account you can watch it on the Go.Sky.com website

Hail 2 Da Thief

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j_hEbHKSTY

Esroh

Great to see Nico win. And Philip showing he has recovered from all ills, hopefully he gets a good winter.

Sure I read somewhere the 2 and Dan are heading for Lombadry next week so all in good form.

Had link to last 10km but it not working

dastardly00

Nico, Philip and Froome did amazingly well to hold off the peloton in the last few kilometres. It really didn't look like that they were going to be able to do it.
Nico looks delighted with his win (stating the obvious), but it looks like he's just got rid of a big weight off his shoulders.

dave2pvd

Helluva TTT.

Nico almost celebrated too early - Deignan came close to pipping him.

Delighted to see Froome hold off the charging peloton.

I got the impression that Froome worked for PD/NR in that run in. Maybe some Euros changed hands? Or just credit in the bank?

Junior

dave2pvd wrote: »

Helluva TTT.

Nico almost celebrated too early - Deignan came close to pipping him.

Delighted to see Froome hold off the charging peloton.

I got the impression that Froome worked for PD/NR in that run in. Maybe some Euros changed hands? Or just credit in the bank?

There was nearly a full bike length in it ? That's not nearly pipping him to me !

Beasty

dave2pvd wrote: »

I got the impression that Froome worked for PD/NR in that run in. Maybe some Euros changed hands? Or just credit in the bank?

Then why did the 2 of them move to the other side of the road, stopping Froome getting back on their wheels? It seemed to me they were all working, and rightly so, otherwise none of them would have won it

RobFowl

Junior wrote: »

There was nearly a full bike length in it ? That's not nearly pipping him to me !

TBF the straight on pictures do foreshorten it quite a lot.
Well won and great result.

dave2pvd

Chaps, these are just theories. I'm not so invested in them that I'm going to spend time on a robust defense.

Great to see the 1-2. Love Roche's finish line celebration.

ednwireland

dave2pvd wrote: »

Great to see the 1-2. Love Roche's finish line celebration.

he has waited a long time for that one, onwards and upwards for both of them (hopefully)

ROK ON

They both needed this, well done to them.
It is always good to finish your season on a high regardless of sport/profession.

ednwireland

highlights on eurosport now



roche interview
http://bcove.me/daro0kus

deignan interview
http://bcove.me/u8oylc7v

fat bloke

Woo hoo!
That's fantastic.

Fair play to the 2 lads.

Hermy

Daniel Martin came in second according to RTE Radio 1 news at 11 this morning.:rolleyes:

Beasty

Hermy wrote: »

Daniel Martin came in second according to RTE Radio 1 news at 11 this morning.:rolleyes:

That's because they couldn't suss out how to view spoilers - bet they got it right once I removed them all;)

Hermy

I saved it to listen back in case I had misheard as Tony Martin is leading but quite a blatant error. It was also the last piece in the bulletin even though it was the only story of an Irish win.

EDIT: They had over an hour from the time you removed the spoilers and still they fecked up.

elduggo

where are the spectators for this race? I thought I saw a few jammed behind a barrier at one point but can't be sure. Otherwise it was just lads with red hats spaced out too evenly to be cycling fans.

And as for that debacle at the finish with the dancing girls and the schoolkids with the flags (possibility these are robots).

Its not bike racing without the crowd. China needs to cop on

ednwireland

nicolas roche diary

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/nicolas-roche-i-sprinted-absolutely-eyeballs-out-for-biggest-win-of-my-career-so-far-2900188.html

elduggo

elduggo wrote: »

where are the spectators for this race? I thought I saw a few jammed behind a barrier at one point but can't be sure. Otherwise it was just lads with red hats spaced out too evenly to be cycling fans.

And as for that debacle at the finish with the dancing girls and the schoolkids with the flags (possibility these are robots).

Its not bike racing without the crowd. China needs to cop on

I didn't just imagine it

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tour-of-beijing-slowly-opens-for-spectators

ednwireland

http://www.atwistedspoke.com/roche-saves-ag2r-in-china/

How do you say “UCI points bonanza!” in Chinese?

The point-strapped AG2R sent a strong and desperate squad to the Tour of Beijing. The mandate: score points or no plane ticket back home. Team manager Vincent Lavenu even warned his French riders there would be no more breakfast croissants if they didn’t retain their ProTour status.

Well, mission accomplished. Nicolas Roche (Ag2r) beat Philip Deignan (RadioShack) and Chris Froome (Team Sky) to the finish line of stage three Men Tou Gou to Yong Ning Town. Crazy “points” party in Yong Ning tonight — there’s a thirty, happy Irishman in town.

....

Lavenu is now back at his computer with his special UCI point calculation software, running the improved set of numbers. By his previous assessment, AG2R was in a disturbing grey area between 15th and 20th on the totem pole. He was nearly forced to purchase the points with UCI president Pat McQuaid’s new “Pay For Points” program.