Thibaut Pinot que compite con la prueba de tiempo de la Etapa 10 del Giro d'Italia (Tim de Waele / TDWSport.com)
Las esperanzas
de Thibaut Pinot de ganar una etapa y la ventaja general en el Giro de
Italia se desmoronaron durante la fase de pruebas del martes a través de
los viñedos del Sagrantino, ya que el 19º puesto del piloto de FDJ lo
vio caer de segundo a cuarto.
The reigning French national time trial
champion, who blamed his poor performance on the rest day, said after
stage 10 that he had simply never felt good during the Giro time trial.
"With
a rest day, ça passe ou ça casse," said Pinot, using the French
expression to mean it's either double or quits, something that boosts
your chances or a setback. But despite a fast start, the Frenchman ended
up gaining a paltry 11 seconds on Quintana. Even without Tom Dumoulin
(Team Sunweb) taking over 2:30 on both of them, such a minimal gain
would not have allowed the FDJ racer to move into pink from a starting
point of 28 seconds down on Quintana.
As a result of his
underwhelming performance, Pinot now sits in fourth position overall,
seven seconds ahead of Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) and 17 down on
Quintana, as well as 2:40 down on Dumoulin. Despite a big improvement in
time trialling last year, Pinot will have to exploit his best-known
talent, climbing, if he wants to get back into the GC battle.
"It
wasn't at all easy," Pinot said as he wheeled to a halt after the
finish line. "I just didn't feel good, couldn't get a good pace going at
any point. I don't know what my times are yet, but I know it was a very
average performance."
Although normally affected by the
heat, Pinot said the very warm weather on Tuesday had not been a
problem. In any case, he could tell early in his effort that things
weren't going well, saying afterwards, "I knew from the start that it
wasn't going to work out, it ended up feeling like a very long time
trial."
Pinot can draw some consolation that if his time
trialling is not going as well as he had hoped, then his performance in
the mountains is much more satisfactory up to now in the Giro. Second on
the Blockhaus climb at 24 seconds, on Saturday at Oropa, he'll have his
first big chance to bounce back.
Fuente:www.cyclingnews.com