Marcato Wins Paris-Tours

Marco Marcato celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the 2012 Paris-Tours cycling race. (vacansoleildcm.co.uk)

Marco Marcato of Vacansoleil-DCM capped off a 20-km attack with a 300-meter sprint to win the 2012 Paris-Tours cycling race.

Marcato, who finished second in 2011, got into the right breakaway and attacked it at the right time to set up a three-rider escape group of which he was the strongest sprinter.

The 28-year-old Italian rider told Eurosport, “This is by far the greatest victory in my career.

“I have to say thanks to my team first because they believed in me and worked for me all day long—they supported me.

Next I have to thank my new wife; we’ve only been married thirty days. I think this is the best wedding present I could give to her. “

Paris Tours, the last One-Day Classics of the season, is a fast, mostly flat 235-km blast from Châteauneuf-en-Thymerais, 100 km outside Paris, to Tours, a route with just enough small hills to create attacking opportunities.

Marcato made the most of one such hill, attacking a 14-rider breakaway which had escaped 20 km from the finish. Marcato pressed on with Laurens De Vreese of Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator and Niki Terpstra of Omega Pharma-Quick Step, then outsprinted Terpstra for the win.

The remaining chasers nearly caught the leaders at the line. John Degenkolb of Argos Shimano launched a solo attack 2.5 km out and came within six seconds of catching the leaders. 2011 winner Greg van Avermaet of BMC, Larnet Pichon of Bretagne-Schuller, and Marcato’s teammate Bjorn Leukemans trailed Degenkolb by another six seconds, while the remaining chasers came in 19 seconds down.

The pace was even faster than usual; the riders beat the projected five-and-a-half hour race time by forty minutes, riding at an average speed of 49 km/h.