13:02 - Marco Pinotti: "My motivation is back for racing one more year"
One of the world’s top specialists Marco Pinotti (BMC), 37, who finished 5th at the Olympic Games last year spoke to letour.fr after scoring the fourth best time at the Parc des Oiseaux: "When I looked at the first time check, I told myself: I’ll loose one and half minute to Tony Martin. I’m 1.38 down, almost correct. I’m a little bit behind my maximum capacities for time trialling. My numbers are a bit down from last year at the Tour of Austria, which was my rehearsal for the Olympics. It’s going to be hard to make the top 10 with that time. I’m not surprised that Tony Martin says he was not at his best. Had we both been at our best on this distance, we would have had the same difference in time at the end. But I didn’t expect such a high average speed because the asphalt is not as good for riding fast, except in the first ten and the last three kilometres. In the early part of the season, I’ve had a bad crash and I’ve announced my retirement for the end of the year, but at the Tour of California, I’ve found the motivation for racing again and I might do one more season."
