Although he has done far less time trial training this year compared to other seasons, Fabian Cancellara was far ahead of his rivals in clocking up what is his eighth national TT championship title today.
The RadioShack Leopard rider dominated the Swiss championships in Satigny, beating IAM Cycling duo Martin Elmiger and Reto Hollenstein by 59 seconds and one minute 57 seconds respectively.
“It was really, really hard. The course was up and down the whole time and with these temperatures, it made for a tough ride,” he said afterwards. “I still felt the Tour de Suisse in my legs, despite the good feelings on the bike yesterday. For me it was also a test to see where my shape is at. I'm certainly satisfied.”
Cancellara has for many years been the fastest rider against the clock, although he has slipped back slightly from that position due to his desire for new goals and also the rise of Tony Martin, who was world champion in 2011 and 2012.
Cancellara now sees the Classics and other big single day races as his big target, and wants to try to take the road race world championship this year. As a result of the latter goal, he has decided to give the Tour de France a miss in order to build up via the Vuelta a Espana.
His ride today saw him slower than Elmiger at the first time check. Seven seconds behind there, he accelerated relative to his rival and soon moved ahead.
Team manager Luca Guercilena said that the tactic was a planned one. “Besides a recon ride of the lap, Fabian didn't do an real warm-up,” he explained. “The temperature was over 36 degrees, so that was a deliberate strategy of ours. He started off a bit slower than Elmiger, to get the machine working, but then he picked up speed and really started going fast. He was sweating like a horse…”
Cancellara’s success today is his fourth win of the season, following on from victories in the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. While those races feature tougher competition, he takes a certain satisfaction from today’s result. “It never gets boring to win your National Championships. For me it's an honour to wear the jersey, so I really went for it,” he said.
1, Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack Leopard) 50 mins 35.391
2, Martin Elmiger (IAM Cycling) at 59.228 secs
3, Reto Hollenstein (IAM Cycling) at 1 min 57.177
4, Marcel Wyss (IAM Cycling) at 2 mins 28.282
5, Claudio Imhof (Atlas Personal-Jakroo) at 5 mins 47.319