With less than a month remaining before the UCI Road World Championships in Richmond, Virginia, Movistar’s Adriano Malori dealt a psychological blow to the other time trial when he beat three-time World Champion Tony Martin Thursday in the stage 4 time trial and the Tour du Poitou-Charentes in France.
Malori covered the 23.2km rain-soaked course in 27:49, four seconds ahead of Martin, who is coming back from a severely broken collarbone suffered in the Tour de France. Malori's teammate Jonathan Castroviejo finished in second place, three seconds ahead of Martin, who took the race lead by 37 seconds over Malori.
"I've spent a lot of time on the TT bike during the last few weeks, thinking about the Worlds, and I knew that my legs were getting better and better," Malori said. "But having Tony Martin racing here made it really difficult for us to aspire to the win.
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"Many times, when he's into the startlist we all race for second place, but today I really felt fantastic. It wasn't a big margin for the win, but it was enough, and I'm super happy to have claimed this success and beating Martin, arguably the world's top time trialist, just one month away from the Worlds - it's so special."
Malori lost crucial time during stage 2 after failing to make the front group as the race broke into echelons. Martin made the front group and so was positioned to move into the race leader's jersey with his podium performance in the time trial.
"Etixx and Lotto attacked into the crosswinds," Malori said of stage 2. "We all were riding further back into the bunch and I'm still angry about that, but this victory and the excellent result by the whole team eases off that feeling.
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