Pinotti’s campaign is backed by a very strong team. Joining him is ten-time Tour de France stage winner Mark Cavendish, Bernhard Eisel, Craig Lewis, Frantisek Rabon, Vicente Reynes and Morris Possoni. Last year the squad scooped most of the spoils in the then-five day event; Cavendish took the first three stages, Rabon nabbed the final one and Pinotti scooped the overall victory when he attacked with ten kilometres to go. British rider Russell Downing (Pinarello CandiTV) had defended very strongly but finally lost out due to that late surge.

Columbia wins more often than any other team in modern cycling and hopes to work its magic again over the next three days. Pinotti said he has grown in confidence since his first ever stage race victory, and says that the importance of the event has also increased in the past twelve months.

“The race has grown since last year,” he said. “There are more eyes on the Tour of Ireland this year. On the plane coming over from Italy, there were lots of Italians travelling to Ireland for their holidays and they knew all about the race.”

Stage 1 map

Columbia’s plan is to try to take stages one and two via Cavendish’s phenomenal sprint, then go for the overall win on the final day in Cork. But with Lance Armstrong and a strong Astana team here, Saxo Bank, Cervélo and many others, they know that things are complicated.

“The race is a bit of a lottery,” he said. “We are going to have to be attentive at every moment. It is obviously very open and in that sense, it is not so different from last year’s race, although the start is a bit harder.

“We’d like two sprint stages to start off with, of course. We will try to control the race, although it is going to be very difficult. There are lots of teams to watch.”

Armstrong didn’t attend the press conference today, but Cervélo’s Philip Deignan did, and said that he and the team was aiming to do well. “I came here two years ago but had to pull out after three days as I was going the Vuelta. Cervélo has a really strong team here and we are all really motivated.

“I think the race is going to be a little bit unpredictable,” continued the Irish rider. “I have to wait and see how it pans out. It would nice to be the leader of the team in my home race but we will have to see how it goes.”

Deignan recently finished tenth on the tough final stage and tenth overall in the Vuelta a Burgos. This sealed his place for the forthcoming Vuelta a España, and set him up for a strong ride in the Irish tour. “I had a good break after the Giro, had a few weeks off and built up again. I am really hungry [to do well]. It is probably my best year since 2005.

“I have had problems for the last few years but everything has gone right this season. I feel like I have returned to the level I should be at, so the motivation is really there. I am looking forward to a good end of season, and I hope to do well here.”

Stage 2 map

Another Irish rider who is hoping that his Tour of Ireland experience works out well is Mark Cassidy (An Post M. Donnelly Grant Thornton Sean Kelly).

Cassidy has struggled with an on-off injury for quite some time, but says that things appear to be moving in the right direction now. “Things are more or less okay now,” he said. “It too a long time to get better, longer than I expected. All winter I was just riding around an hour or two hours. I did two training camps with the team but they were like races for me, I had no condition. But in the last few weeks I feel like I am coming around.”

He and Ronan McLaughlin are the only two Irish riders on the team, with Paídi O’Brien having been forced to withdraw from the squad due to a hand injury. Cassidy is hoping that he can make an impression on the race. “We have strength in depth. It is a pity we don’t have more Irish guys here on the team, just me and Ronan. It would have been nice to have Paídi here, but on a sporting level, the team is still as strong.

“I hope to get up on a stage or up overall. I think it is in me to do well.”

His Belgian team-mate Niko Eeckhout is certainly in very good form, having won the 1.1 GP Stad Zottegem on Tuesday. “Niko is in great form and I think he could really do something here,” Cassidy said.

Tomorrow’s stage will be a poignant one; a minute’s silence will be observed prior to the 10am rollout to mark the sudden passing of Paul Healion, the 31 year old national time trial champion who was tragically killed in a car crash on Sunday evening.

He was having his best-ever season and was due to take part in the race with the Irish national team. Instead, he was buried in Dunboyne yesterday morning. Cassidy, like many others, was finding it hard to come to terms with that.

“Paul was a really good guy, and an inspiration for younger riders,” he said. “He was a good friend and was supposed to be here. I would like to see an Irish rider win a stage or win overall. It doesn’t matter who, it would be great to dedicate that to him.”


Impressive lineup:

The field for this year’s Tour of Ireland is the strongest yet, with ten-time Tour de France stage winner Mark Cavendish (Columbia HTC) and seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong (Astana) leading the charge.

Last year Cavendish won the first three stages of the race, while Columbia team-mate Frantisek Rabon took the final one in Cork. What’s more, Marco Pinotti scooped the overall classification.

Stage 3 map

Probably the biggest single obstacle to a repeat win by him is a very strong Astana team selection, which will support seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong in his bid for success. He will be joined by right hand man Yaroslav Popovych, Slovenian time trial champion Janez Brajkovic, Jésus Hernández, Haimar Zubeldia, Jose Luis Rubiera and Michael Schar.

Saxo Bank will be led by former Tour de France Maillot Jaune Stuart O’Grady and Jakob Fuglsang, who has had a superb first season with the team. The former mouintainbike rider was an excellent sixth in the Dauphiné Libéré and recently nabbed a second overall win in the Tour of Denmark. Alexander Kolobnev is also very strong and must be considered a real dark horse.

The main Irish hopes will focus on Philip Deignan. He will be joined by six other Cervélo Test Team riders, including the Britons Roger Hammond, Dan Fleeman, Dan Lloyd and Roger Hammond.


Other teams:

As Russell Downing proved last year, those on lesser-known teams are nevertheless capable of making a big impression. He almost won the 2008 event and has come back one year later with a determined CandiTV Marshall’s Pasta team-mate Malcolm Elliott, a former Tour of Spain points jersey victor.

Others to watch are 2008 King of the Mountains winner Matt Wilson (Team Type 1), Norwegian Under 23 road race champion Alexander Kristoff (Joker Bianchi), Jack Bobridge and Travis Meyer (Australian national team selection), Andriy Grivko and 2005 world under 23 road race champ Dmytro Grabovskyy (ISD Neri), FBD Insurance Rás winners Simon Richardson, Krisitian House and Chris Newton (all Rapha Condor) and South African national champion Ian McLeod (MTN-Energade)

Apart from Deignan, Irish hopes will rest on the shoulders of the Ireland national team plus the An Post M. Donnelly Grant Thornton Sean Kelly squad. The latter is registered in that country but based in Belgium; Cassidy and Ronan McLaughlin will be joined by five Belgians, including the in-form Eeckhout.

The Irish national selection is led by David McCann, a multiple Irish champion who last year finished third overall in the Tour de Qinghai Lake in China. Experienced riders Martyn Irvine and Paul Griffin will help guide the younger riders Philip Lavery, Sean Downey and Sam Bennett, who stunned Irish cycling when he won a stage of this year’s FBD Insurance Rás at 18 years of age.


Route:

Reduced from five to three days this year due to the tough economic situation in Ireland and overseas, the organisers have nevertheless come up with a good course which visits many Irish scenic areas. The main race sponsor is Failte Ireland, the Irish Tourist Board, and conveying postcard-perfect images of the country is of big importance to them.

Day one covers 196 kilometres from the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Powerscourt to Waterford. Very shortly after the start the field climbs the Lower Sugar Loaf, and then travels through towns such as Roundwood and Bunclody before scaling the category one Mount Leinster climb. After the descent it will then move through Borris, over the Coppanagh (cat 3) and Inistioge (cat 2) hills and then race on towards the finish on Merchant’s Quay in Waterford.

Stage two begins in Clonmel and travels 196 kilometres to the tourist haven of Killarney. The second category Vee climb will shake things up early on, while towards the end of the stage the peloton encounters the cat. two Musheramore and cat. one Curragh ascents, giving a chance for the rouleurs and climbers to thwart the sprinters.

The final stage on Sunday August 23rd is the shortest at 185 kilometres, but is certainly the toughest. The category three Ballyane climb comes soon after the start in Bantry, and while it is generally flat for quite some time after that, the three laps of the Cork finishing circuit are going to cause absolute mayhem. The effects of the famous 25% slopes of St. Patrick’s Hill climb (category 1) will be exacerbated by a number of other tough ramps, and there could well be serious upheaval in the general classification.

Each stage will also feature three An Post sprints, serving to further liven things up.

Cork finishing circuit