Pinizzotto wins in Québec City

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Leonardo Pinizzotto spent a second day off the front at the Tour de Beauce during Saturday's stage 4 circuit race through old Québec City, but this time the Amore & Vita-Selle SMP rider rewarded himself with a stage win.

The 27-year-old Italian was the final survivor of the breakaway earlier this week during stage 1, but the field caught him in the final kilometer before his teammate Luca Benedetti won the bunch sprint. On Saturday, Pinizzotto finished off his day's work by jumping away from one other rider in the last kilometer and holding on to win by six seconds.

Budget-ForkLifts' Brodie Talbot lost contact with Pinizzotto in the finale but muscled his way up the lengthy final drag to finish second, just seven seconds ahead of field-sprint winner Jure Kocjan (Team SmartStop). Hincapie Sportswear's Tom Skujins finished fifth on the stage and held onto the leader's jersey heading into Sunday's finale in St-Georges.

"I've been waiting for this victory for a long time," Pinizzotto said. "I came into this block of racing ready to race, and I was believing that I could win something. We came to Philadelphia [Cycling Classic] with a little too much travel in the legs, so I wasn't great there. Last week in [Grand Prix] Saguenay I was in the top 10 every day, then the first day here I got caught with 1km to go. We won the stage, luckily, but maybe a little more tactically than anything. But today was the day that was scripted for me in the breakaway."

The Québec City circuit, which traversed many of the same roads used for the WorldTour race in September, was a soggy affair like the past two days of racing in Beauce. Organizers neutralized the first of nine laps so riders could familiarize themselves with some of the trickier descents on the course, but once racing began in earnest riders immediately set the throttle on high. Attacks flew left and right, but none of the moves were able to gain more than a slight lead before the escapees fell back into the fold.

On the third lap of the day, Viesturs Luksevics (Amore & Vita), Rob Squire (Jamis-Hagens Berman) and Bjorn Selander (Optum Pro Cycling) initiated a breakaway that soon drew Pinozzotto and Talbot out of the bunch as well. It took a while for the field to give the move some rope, but at the start of the sixth lap the five leaders had 2:35 on the bunch. A small chase group tried to bridge, but the effort failed to make it to the front and the field swallowed it up as the leaders' gap grew to three minutes – their largest margin of the day.

Hincapie Sportswear, which had stacked all its riders on the front for most of the race, started whittling away at the leaders' advantage, bringing it down steadily over the next two-and-a-half laps. With just two circuits remaining, the gap was down to 2:25, and halfway through the lap it had plunged to just 1:30.

Talbot sensed the chase picking up and pushed the pace on the steep grind up Cote de la Montagne about one kilometer from the start/finish, cutting the lead group down to just himself, Pinizzotto and Squire to start the final lap.

"I knew the bunch were coming fast," Talbot said. "So I just wanted to really make it hard up the climb. I just picked up the pace on the steepest section to hopefully get rid of the weaker riders and also hold onto the gap we had."

Talbot continued on the front of the three-rider group as Pinizzotto and Squire started planning their tactics for the finale, and the 25-year-old Australian held the leaders' advantage at around a minute with just over half a lap remaining.

"It was little bit frustrating," Talbot said of having to take over the workload. "But I figured at the time that I was better off going full gas, and if we hold on then I would still get a result out of it. It would have been good to get the win, but [Pinizzotto] is a very good bike rider, and he out-rode me today."

Squire, the 24-year-old from the US, rode a solid race and looked good and was well-suited to contest the finale, but an ill-timed encounter with a rain-slicked manhole cover in the final 3km sent him to the ground and out of the lead group. From there it was all Pinizzotto and Talbot for the finish.

The Italian rider jumped with about 500 meters to go, and Talbot was unable to counter, allowing Pinizzotto to solo across the line and win by six seconds. Pinizzotto said he did not know his fellow breakaway riders well, so he took stock in their abilities throughout the race and decided to put in one big effort at the end. It obviously worked.

"Coming into the last lap I saw where the pack was, and I decided just to give it one good shot," he said. "Then I held off the rest."

Most of the top general classification riders finished on the same time as Kocjan, with Asbjorn Kragh Anderson (Christina Watches) grabbing fourth, followed by Skujins and Serghei Tvetcov (Jelly Belly-Maxxis).

Skujins continues to lead Tevtocv by 1:17, Kragh by 1:30 and Rob Britton (SmartStop) by 1:43. Stage 3 winner Stefan Schumacher (Christina Watches) is fifth overall, 1:47 down.

The 29th edition of the Tour de Beauce concludes Sunday with another difficult circuit race. Riders will traverse 12 laps of a 10.4km course in the heart of St-Georges. Francisco Mancebo, riding for 5-hour Energy, lost his overall lead last year to Bontrager's Nathan Brown on a circuit in St-Georges.

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