Play ‘It was very emotional and I have to admit that I did cry’ – Nicholas Roche retires from professional cycling
Just a day after finishing sixth in the national road race championships in Wicklow, Nicholas Roche has announced his retirement from professional cycling.
After enlivening the title race when going clear with numerous attacks, including a long foray off the front with Eddie Dunbar, Roche admitted he shed a tear in the final kilometres yesterday, knowing that it was his last race.
“I had made the decision a while ago but I didn’t want to announce it before the championships, because I didn’t want to take away from the race itself, but I was tearing up a bit coming in the road knowing that I wouldn’t be racing here, or anywhere else, again. It was very emotional and I have to admit that I did cry.”
After a career spanning 17 years in the pro peloton, taking in no less than 24 Grand Tours, it was perhaps fitting that Roche stopped racing his bike on his favourite training roads and where he began racing as a 12-year-old for his local club, Orwell Wheelers.
Since then, an impressive career has seen him take 12 pro victories, including stages of the Tour of Beijing, Tour of Limousin, Route du Sud as well as three stages of the Vuelta a Espana – a race where he also held the coveted race leader's jersey for periods in both 2013 and 2019.
Although he missed out on a third road race title this weekend, Roche first wore the Irish national champion’s jersey on his debut at the Tour de France in 2009 and represented Ireland at almost 20 world championships and three Olympiads.
Off the bike, his long running Tour de France diaries have built up a huge following in the Irish Independent, while his first book, Inside the Peloton, won Sports Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards in 2011, so it is perhaps unsurprising that a career in television punditry, may be among other new challenges.
“The diaries are one of the things I’m most proud of,” he said today. “Whenever I get into a taxi in Ireland or meet people anywhere now, they tell me how much they enjoyed reading the diaries and I’m happy that people enjoyed them and I’m very grateful for their support over the years.”
You can read Roche's final diary as a professional cyclist on Independent.ie tomorrow.
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