TrainingPeaks Member Marco Pinotti Wins Tour of Ireland
3 September 2008
In the final ten kilometers of the last stage, three-time Italian national time trial champion Marco Pinotti won the Tour of Ireland with a brilliant attack, setup by his Columbia teammate Michael Barry. Pinotti and Barry both started the day only 18 seconds behind Great Britain’s Russel Downing (Pinarello Racing Team), and knew that they had to ride a smart race on the last day’s challenging course. The final stage between Killarney and Cork finished with four laps of a difficult circuit featuring the famous St. Patricks Hill, a short but steep climb favoring explosive riders. Although Pinotti considers himself to be more of a steady climber, he met the challenge by riding carefully and making his moves towards the top of the hill.
During the last ten kilometers, or 14 minutes of the race, Pinotti averaged 390 watts, for a normalized power of 417 watts as a result of the hilly terrain. This final solo effort allowed him to stay away from race leader Downing and take the overall win by just 19 seconds. You can view Pinottis SRM power file at TrainingPeaks to get a better idea of the effort involved in this finishing push.
Next up for Pinotti is the Tour of Missouri, where he will again be aiming to win a time trial and place Team Columbia in a position to win a late season stage race. In an interview with VeloNews, he discusses his Irish Tour victory, next weeks Tour of Missouri, preparation for the upcoming World Championships and his feelings over not being selected to represent Italy in the Olympics.
The final 10km of Pinottis file put crucial time into his main rivals.
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