Roche: Dan Martin is our best chance

Nicolas Roche has said that he will give his full support to his cousin Dan Martin in Sunday's elite men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships. Roche says that he is not in his best form and believes that Martin, who became a father for the first time last week, provides the Irish with their best shot at success.

Martin and Roche will be joined by Connor Dunne and Ryan Mullen in Ireland's four-man line-up.

"I haven't spoken to Dan yet, but in the Vuelta, he seemed to be in good shape but recently he's, rightly so, had his mind on his twins I think now he's full of energy and recharged and I think on Sunday he's definitely our best chance," said Roche.

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Like his competitors, Roche is curious to see how the challenging course will affect the race tactics. The men will complete six laps of the short circuit, which includes a climb into Igls, before the final, longer lap where they will take on the climb to Igls and then the painfully steep Höll climb. When speaking after the time trial, Roche hadn't seen the route up close and personal but he had already seen what it could do earlier in the year.

"I think it will be quite active because only a few riders in the peloton can say, 'I can attack on that climb and make a difference.' So, most of the other riders who are competitive are going to have to anticipate it if they want to have a chance. I think we'll see riders attacking early because that's the only way to win it," he explained.

"It seems that they're always trying to create something sensational to make it different. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. Do we really need a 20 per cent climb there, why not? I suppose it is quite interesting with six laps of a quite hard circuit. I was watching the stage of the Tour of the Alps and it was quite interesting to see how it blew apart and they just had a couple of laps there and it was without a proper climb. Obviously, it's going to suit one of those extremely light riders. The Worlds are quite interesting because there is always a certain amount of surprise."

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