In recognition of a season when he took his fourth world time trial title as well as victories in Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders, top Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara is set to be honoured with the Velo d’Or trophy for 2010.
The French websites Cyclism’Actu and Velochrono have reported that the Saxo Bank rider will finally be crowned as the winner of the prestigious award, which has been handed out annually by Velo Magazine since 1992. He was the runner-up in 2007 and 2008, and took third in 2006 and again last year.
Alberto Contador has topped the votes for the past three seasons, but is currently under investigation and, presumably, this is a factor in his missing out.
Cancellara has had a fine season, taking those three aforementioned victories and also landing wins in the prologues of the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de France, the final time trial in the latter, the overall of the Tour of Oman and the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen-Harelbeke. He is set to leave the Saxo Bank team and is tipped to compete with either the new Luxembourg team or BMC Racing in 2011.
The Belgian rider Philippe Gilbert was another standout rider with his victories in the Amstel Gold race, the Tour of Lombardy and other events. In previous years there was an early cut-off date for voting. If this once again fell before Lombardy, this could conceivably have affected his chances.
According to Cyclism’Actu, the Velo d’Or Français award will be awarded to French road race champion Thomas Voeckler, who won stages in the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and Paris-Nice, as well as the ProTour Grand Prix de Montréal.
The Velo d’Or Espoir international prize goes to Andy Schleck, while Yoann Offredo will take the French equivalent.
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Previous Velo d’Or winners:
1992, Miguel Indurain (Spain)
1993, Miguel Indurain (Spain)
1994, Tony Rominger (Switzerland)
1995, Laurent Jalabert (France)
1996, Johan Museeuw (Belgium)
1997, Jan Ullrich (Germany)
1998, Marco Pantani (Italy)
1999, Lance Armstrong (USA)
2000, Lance Armstrong (USA)
2001, Lance Armstrong (USA)
2002, Mario Cipollini (Italy)
2003, Lance Armstrong (USA)
2004, Lance Armstrong (USA)
2005, Tom Boonen (Belgium)
2006, Paolo Bettini (Italy)
2007, Alberto Contador (Spain)
2008, Alberto Contador (Spain)
2009, Alberto Contador (Spain)