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Fabian Cancellara

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Fabian Cancellara
Personal information
Full nameFabian Cancellara
NicknameSpartacus
Tony Montana
Height1.86 m (6 ft 1 in)
Weight80 kg (180 lb; 13 st)
Team information
Current teamTeam CSC Saxo Bank
DisciplineRoad
RoleRider
Rider typeTime-Trialist
Major wins
Template:FlagiconUCI World Time-Trial Champion (2006, 2007)
(Gold), 2008 Olympic Time Trial
Tour de France, 3 stages
Paris-Roubaix (2006)
Milan-Sanremo (2008)
Tirreno-Adriatico (2008)
Points jersey, Tour de Suisse (2008)
Switzerland National Time-Trial Champion
(2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008)

Fabian Cancellara (born March 18, 1981 in Wohlen bei Bern) is a Swiss professional road bicycle racer for UCI ProTeam Team CSC. A time trial specialist, he is the current, and two time, World Time Trial Champion and Olympic gold medalist. He is also a winner of Paris-Roubaix, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-Sanremo and two prologues of Tour de France.

Cancellara and his wife Stefanie have one daughter, Giuliana.

Career

Early years

Cancellara was born in Wohlen bei Bern, a municipality near the city of Berne, in 1981 to an Italian mother and Swiss-German father. He discovered cycling at the age of 13 after falling in love with an old family bike that he found in the garage and immediately gave up football to concentrate on cycling.[1]

Cancellara's cycling skills began to blossom at an early age, when he impressed as a time trialist and dominated Swiss junior cycling. Yvan Girard, Swiss national junior team coach from 1997 to 2005, was quoted saying that Cancellara was head and shoulders above everyone else in the time trials.[2] He won the junior World Time Trial Championship in both 1998 and 1999 and at the age of 19 he came in second at the 2000 U-23 World Time Trial Championship, after which he turned professional with Mapei-Quick Step, then one of the strongest teams in the world.

2001-2002 (Mapei)

Cancellara rode as stagiaire for the Mapei-Quick Step team in late 2000 before joining the team for the 2001 season as a member of the "Young Riders Project". Cancellara's first victory as a professional came at the prologue of the Tour of Rhodes, were he also won the overall final general classification. For 2002 the Mapei team split into two formations per UCI regulations, the "Top Team" with 25 riders and the GS-III "Gruppo Giovani" (youth group) to develop young talents, which Cancellara joined with other riders like Filippo Pozzato, Michael Rogers and Bernhard Eisel.[3] Giorgio Squinzi, the head of Mapei firm, later said in an interview with the La Gazzetta dello Sport that he took Cancellara and Pozzato all the way from the Junior category to Mapei's top team, in order to let them avoid the Under-23 category where he suggested that the doping was even worse than among professionals. Squinzi also said that Cancellara was going to be The future Miguel Indurain.[4] During the two seasons he spent in Mapei, Cancellara used his time trialling skills to great effect by winning several individual time trials and a total of eleven victories.

2003-2005 (Fassa Bortolo)

Following the cessation of sponsorship of Mapei at the end of 2002, Cancellara switched to Fassa Bortolo to work as a leadout man for Alessandro Petacchi but also managed to win the prologues of the big races Tour de Romandie and Tour de Suisse and a time trial at the Tour of Belgium. 2004 was Cancellara's definite break-through season. He finished fourth in the classic race Paris-Roubaix, and at the Tour de France he won the prologue ahead of Lance Armstrong, and thus started the race in the yellow jersey. Defending the jersey in the first stage of the race, he lost it after the second stage, handing it to Thor Hushovd. He also won an individual time trial at the Tour de Luxembourg and bunch sprints at Setmana Catalana and Tour of Qatar.

In 2005, Cancellara was one of the favourites for the Paris-Roubaix, but a flat tire 46 kilometers from the finish line[5] meant he finished 8th, almost four minutes behind winner Tom Boonen. Later that year, he came in third at the World Time Trial Championship in Madrid. He also won a stage at the Paris-Nice and the individual time trials of Setmana Catalana and Tour de Luxembourg, where he finished second overall with the same time as the winner, Laszlo Bodrogi.

2006 (Team CSC)

Fabian Cancellara in the 9. stage of the 2007 Tour de Suisse

When the Fassa Bortolo team was discontinued in the winter of 2005, Cancellara signed a 3-year contract with Team CSC, starting from the 2006 season. Before the 2006 Paris-Roubaix he said he had never been better prepared[6] and following his own acceleration on the cobblestones in the forest of Arenberg, just below 100 kilometers from the finish line, he forced a selection of 17 riders to compete for the win. When Discovery Channel rider Vladimir Gusev attacked on the Le Carrefour de l’Arbre cobblestones with 17 kilometers to go, Cancellara followed him, before passing Gusev for a solo break-away. Cancellara quickly gained 30 seconds on the other favourites and riding the last kilometers like a time trial[7] he kept on expanding his lead for the remainder of the race[8] finishing one and a half minutes ahead of the riders closest to him. He became only the second Swiss winner of the Paris-Roubaix, following Heiri Suter in 1923. During the season he also won the indidividual time trials of Tirreno-Adriatico, Volta a Catalunya and Post Danmark Rundt, where he also won a stage and the overall classification. Later that year, he won the World Time Trial Championships in Salzburg, Austria.

2007 (Team CSC)

After a slow start to the season, Cancellara hit form in June, winning 3 separate time trials in Switzerland: The prologue and Stage 9 of the Tour de Suisse, and the National time trial Championships. In the Tour de Suisse he held onto his yellow jersey until Stage 4, where it passed on to teammate Fränk Schleck.

On July 7, Cancellara won the prologue of the Tour de France in London with a time of 8 minutes and 50 seconds. He defeated Andreas Kloden of Team Astana by 13 seconds. During Stage 2, he was caught up in a very large crash which brought down an estimated thirty riders. He crossed the finish line nursing his left hand but appeared to be fine during the yellow jersey presentation. He subsequently won the third stage in Compiegne, France, catching and overtaking a breakaway group of four in the dying seconds of the stage. Cancellara held the yellow jersey until stage 7, the tour's first mountain stage. On September 27 he won his second UCI Road World Championships Time Trial with 52 seconds over Laszlo Bodrogi.[9]

2008 (Team CSC Saxo Bank)

Fabian Cancellara in the Prologue of the 2008 Tour of California

Cancellara won the prologue of Tour of California ahead of Olympic gold medalist Bradley Wiggins in his first race of the season. He managed his losses in the mountain stage to San José and was second overall before the final time trial but due to fatigue he finished fourth overall. He then won the second edition of Italian Monte Paschi Eroica ahead of Alessandro Ballan, winner of the 2007 Ronde van Vlaanderen. During the Tirreno-Adriatico he proved his improvement in stage races and won the overall classification and the individual time trial to Recanati. Just a few days later in the Milan-Sanremo, Cancellara broke away from a leading group in the final kilometres to win the Milan-Sanremo classic monument race. In the 2008 edition of Paris-Roubaix, Cancellara finished 2nd behind Tom Boonen in a sprint finish at the Roubaix velodrome, but just ahead of Alessandro Ballan.

In preparation for the second half of the season Cancellara also won the prologue of the Tour de Luxembourg and two stages of the Tour de Suisse, both stages won with solo attacks a few kilometres from the finish. Despite being unable to win any stage at the Tour de France he finished second in the last individual time trial and helped his teammate Carlos Sastre winning the overall classification. In the Olympic Road Race in Beijing, Cancellara finished 3rd, winning the bronze medal, after Spaniard Samuel Sanchez (gold) and Italian Davide Rebellin (silver). He produced an audacious and unexpected burst of speed over the last five kilometres to escape a following group of 10, then a chase group of 2, then the leading group of three just inside the last kilometer, bringing the last two chasers with him covering a substantial 21 second gap of time deficit in less than three and a half minutes over 4 kilometers. He finished third in the 6 man uphill lead group sprint.[10] He later won the Olympic Individual Time Trial, beating CSC-Saxo Bank teammate, Gustav Erik Larsson.

Career highlights

Fabian Cancellara
Medal record
Representing  Switzerland
Road bicycle racing
Olympic Games
Bronze medal – third place 2008 Beijing Men's road race
Gold medal – first place 2008 Beijing Men's Road Time Trial
World Championships
Gold medal – first place 2007 Stuttgart Elite Men's Time Trial
Gold medal – first place 2006 Salzburg Elite Men's Time Trial
Bronze medal – third place 2005 Madrid Elite Men's Time Trial
Silver medal – second place 2000 Plouay U-23 Men's Time Trial
Gold medal – first place 1998 Valkenburg Junior Men's Time Trial
Gold medal – first place 1999 Verona Junior Men's Time Trial
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Sporting positions
Preceded by Olympic Time Trial Champion
2008 Beijing Olympics 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
Preceded by World Time Trial Champion
2006,2007 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
Preceded by Winner of Paris-Roubaix
2006 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Winner of Milan-Sanremo
2008 		Succeeded by
Incumbent

Footnotes

  1. ^ ESPN - Fabian Cancellara - Olympics Athletes - 2008 Summer Olympics - Beijing, China
  2. ^ The Swiss Spartacus gears up for success - swissinfo.ch
  3. ^ Mega Mapei wants to regain top spot in '02 - cyclingnews.com
  4. ^ MAPEI'S BOSS SQUINZI COMMITTED TO FIGHTING DOPING (By Fabio) dailypeloton.com
  5. ^ BOONEN KING OF THE CLASSICS, A.S.O., 2005
  6. ^ Cancellara: Never Been Better Prepared, Team-CSC
  7. ^ Timely victory for Siwtzerland’s Cancellara, A.S.O., April 9, 2006
  8. ^ The race, A.S.O., April 9, 2006
  9. ^ www.cyclingnews.com presents the World Championships
  10. ^ Fabian Cancellara’s incredible ride to bronze - by Dave Luecking

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fabian Cancellara.

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