Nicolas Roche: Irish cyclist named in Sunweb’s Tour de France & Giro d’Italia line-up

Ireland’s Nicolas Roche has been confirmed as part of Team Sunweb’s line-up for the 2020 Tour de France and Giro d’Italia races.

The Giro d’Italia, postponed from May, will take place from 3-25 October.

The Sunweb team, including 32-year-old Roche, will undertake socially distanced altitude training in Austria prior to heading to France.

As part of this, they will stay at a hotel in Kuhtai in the Austrian Alps, which is open exclusively for Sunweb riders.

To minimise risk of infection, the team will operate in multiple bubbles for rider and staff, with these bubbles being kept separate during travel.

All riders must return a negative Covid-19 test before travelling to camp.

This will be Roche’s 10th appearance at the Tour de France, with a best finish of 12th in 2012, and his fifth time racing the Giro d’Italia.

The France-born rider, who signed a two-year contract extension with Sunweb in 2019, is joined on the team by Soren Kragh Andersen, Nikias Arndt, Tiesj Benoot, Cees Bol, Marc Hirschi, Joris Nieuwenhuis, Roche and Jasha Sutterlin.