Although he downplayed his chances somewhat before yesterday’s time trial, saying that he hadn’t done much specialist training this year and was thus unsure of his chances, Fabian Cancellara was disappointed to miss out on victory in the 8.1 kilometre stage in Quinto.
The quadruple world champion finished sixteenth in the test, 22 seconds behind the winner Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEdge), but it was recognised by many that a change in wind direction meant that the later starters were disadvantaged.
Without that shift, it is possible that Cancellara could have challenged Meyer for the win.
“No results today so I’m somewhat disappointed,” Cancellara said afterwards. “In the end when I came to the car I saw I’d done the maximum. I did a great race against the other favourites, but without a result. That’s sport.
“Luck was not on my side, but I still feel confidence. My feelings were also good – I was riding close to the limit and that’s always important. It was reassuring.”
His RadioShack Leopard team-mate Hayden Roulston spoke of how significant the change in conditions were. “It was very, very hard. The wind changed half way through the stage,” he said. “For the first half of the riders it was a tailwind at the start, headwind on the down hill and tailwind home. For us it was exactly the opposite. On the downhill you are already going fast so a tailwind doesn’t really help you that much.”
Cancellara has changed his focus this year, concentrating on a big Classics campaign in place of doing time trial training. That paid off with victories in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, but means he is less dominant against the clock than he had been in the past.
Still, it’s a trade-off that he is willing to take, explaining that his ambitions have changed and that after winning the world championship four times, that he needs new goals.
Those goals include trying to take the rainbow jersey in the worlds road race and, because of that, he has opted to miss this year’s Tour de France and to instead ride the Vuelta as preparation.
In the meantime, he’ll look for other opportunities to perform in the Tour de Suisse, his home race.