Having made his return to racing at the GP Cycliste de Quebec and GP Cycliste de Montreal, Marco Pinotti is pleased to be back in the bunch but doesn’t expect a big result in next Wednesday’s world championship time trial.
The HTC Highroad competitor fractured a bone in his pelvis in a big crash in the Giro d’Italia, and said he’s still trying to build good condition. He was a non-finisher in both of the Canadian events, but indicated after each that he was satisfied with the workout he got.
“The races were hard for my me, certainly not the ideal to start in term of stress load, but I should be a bit stronger now,” he told VeloNation yesterday evening. “After I recovered from jet lag, I feel a bit stronger, but not enough to hope for a good results at the world championships.”
In a long interview prior to those Canadian WorldTour events, Pinotti told VeloNation that he was unsure if he would go to the worlds. He said then that he was still talking to the Italian national coach Paolo Bettini about what he should do; it’s the latter who has now encouraged him to travel.
“Bettini wanted me to start despite my doubts of lacking form. So I have accepted that, based on the understanding that I didn't take anyone else’s place and I can bring my experience to the race, helping [Adrian] Malori.
“Beside that, I am curious to see how far I can go. It is not a matter of results, rather of a performance. I am curious to see what can I pull out in terms of power and performance and it will be a interesting case of someone who has been off for 10 weeks and training a bit more than 40 days.”
After Copenhagen, Pinotti could ride more events prior to taking his off-season break, but he’s not sure as yet. He said that he could do the Tour of Beijing, the Giro de Piemonte and the Giro di Lombardia, but there was also a chance that the worlds TT could be his last race of 2011.