Not all national champions kits turn out well (just take a look at Tinkoff’s current designs for Rafal Majka and Roman Kreuziger), but Team Sky have done a pretty decent job over the years of keeping it fairly classy.
That’s predominantly been through British national champions, from Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas in 2010 through to Peter Kennaugh’s particularly elegant looking kit last year.
Despite no British champ in this year’s roster after Adam Blythe (Tinkoff) took the win in Stockton-on-Tees in June, they’ve still got Nicolas Roche, who seriously impressed by taking both the national road race and time trial titles of Ireland for 2016/17.
Sky revealed designs of Roche’s new Rapha national champs kit on Twitter on Monday, with a generally positive reception. There’s no Irish colours around the torso, but a green hoop with a shamrock and the Irish colours on the sleeve.
#TDP2016 kicks off tomorrow and @nicholasroche will debut this beautiful new Irish national champion's kit! 🇮🇪 pic.twitter.com/SvXXg00QSm
— Team Sky 🚲 (@TeamSky) July 11, 2016
We’ll assume there’s no white shorts here based on Sky’s track record, with the white base of the jersey set to complemented with some black bibs.
The team also revealed the colours of their other national champ, Czech time trial champion Leopold König. It’s a fairly straightforward design to the skinsuit, with a white top and black bottoms with the Czech national colours.
https://twitter.com/TeamSky/status/752442837606825984
Roche is set to debut is new colours in the Tour of Poland, which starts on Tuesday, while König will have to wait until the final stage to show off his new skinsuit.
