Nico Roche on how he grew to love Sunweb’s ‘strange and disturbing’ attention to detail
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Updated 31/10/2020 at 12:24 GMT
Nico Roche says that Team Sunweb have taken a strange approach to management, but one that has paid off for the young squad.
Nicholas Roche of Ireland and Team Sunweb
Image credit: Getty Images
Lockdown training was a struggle for even the best cyclists in the world, but Sunweb’s Nico Roche says his team management’s approach to training and communication set them up for a strong season.
The young Sunweb team exceeded expectations in 2020, and Roche says the path to that success started before the season began and continued right through the coronavirus lockdown.
“We all know that Team Sunweb were rebuilding the team with a lot of youngsters and they’ve been taking on a lot of young talent over the last couple of years,” Roche tells Eurosport’s Orla Chennaoui.
“It’s taken them a few years to develop as a rider and this year was the year they were able to express themselves.
“But the team also put all the means behind the riders to bring them up to this level. At the meetings at the start of this year we spent a lot of time talking about things, but not meetings about sponsorships and nutrition, meetings all about race tactics.
We spent a lot of time working in meeting rooms on how to race a bike, which initially can be quite strange or disturbing, I wasn’t quite used to that way of working. But I think all these little bits kind of compensated for the lack of experience or lack of racing that we had.
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Nico Roche on how Team Sunweb's unusual approach to management has paid off
And Roche explained how that attention to detail continued throughout the year.
“During lockdown the team was very active. We had our Monday morning conference calls or video calls.
And we had homework to prepare on how we would approach for Stage 18 of the Tour de France, or how we would prepare for Stage 12 of the Vuelta, what we’d do in case of a puncture, or whatever. And we were mentally ready and I think one after another it all adds up.
“We also had a very good team camp in July, almost three to four weeks at altitude with the whole team. We were all in bubbles but all very focused on the different areas. The Giro group were doing their thing, we were doing our thing, and the young guys preparing for the end of the season were also doing their own special programme.
“So I think all the efforts that the team put into helping us through the whole year, plus the fact that there is pure talent in the team, all came together. And of course I put my experience in as well, I’ve got to give myself the thumbs up. And that all made it a pretty good team.”
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