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Olympic Gold Medalist Fabian Cancellara Wins Prologue for Second... amgentourofcalifornia.com | Dr. Dennis F. Fabian, D.O. Orthopaedic Surgery, Sports Medicine, St. svcmc.org | Report: Fabian Revita Franco - Georgia Doctors georgia-doctors.net | DR. FABIAN BLASCHKE: - Beauty-Surgery beauty-surgery.co.uk |
Fabian Cancellara (born 18 March 1981) is a Swiss professional road bicycle racer for UCI ProTour Team Saxo Bank. A time trial specialist, he has been three time World Time Trial Champion and is the current Olympic gold medalist. He is also a winner of Paris-Roubaix, Milan-Sanremo, Tirreno-Adriatico, Monte Paschi Eroica, and three prologues of the Tour de France. Cancellara and his wife Stefanie have one daughter, Giuliana.
[edit] Career[edit] Early yearsCancellara was born in Wohlen bei Bern, a municipality near the city of Berne, Switzerland, Europe, to Italian parents that had emigrated from San Fele. He discovered cycling at the age of 13 after falling in love with an old family bike that he had found in the garage and immediately gave up football to concentrate on cycling.[2] 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.[3] 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. [edit] 2001-2002Cancellara 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 including Filippo Pozzato, Michael Rogers and Bernhard Eisel.[4] 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 doping was even worse than among professionals. Squinzi also said that Cancellara was going to be "The future Miguel Indurain".[5] During his two seasons with Mapei, Cancellara used his time trialling skills to great effect, winning several individual time trials and a total of eleven victories. [edit] 2003-2005Following the cessation of sponsorship of Mapei at the end of 2002, Cancellara joined Fassa Bortolo to work as a lead-out man for Alessandro Petacchi in 2003. He won the prologues of the Tour de Romandie and the Tour de Suisse as well as a time trial at the Tour of Belgium. Cancellara's break-through season was 2004. He finished fourth in the classic race Paris-Roubaix, and he won the prologue at the Tour de France ahead of Lance Armstrong, earning the yellow jersey which he wore for two stages. He also won an individual time trial at the Tour de Luxembourg and bunch sprints at Setmana Catalana and the Tour of Qatar. In 2005, Cancellara was one of the favourites for Paris-Roubaix, but a flat tire 46 kilometers from the finish line[6] meant he finished 8th, almost four minutes behind winner Tom Boonen. Later that year, he came third at the World Time Trial Championship in Madrid. He also won a stage at Paris-Nice and the individual time trials of Setmana Catalana and the Tour de Luxembourg, where he finished second overall with the same time as the winner, Laszlo Bodrogi. [edit] 2006 When the Fassa Bortolo team was discontinued, Cancellara signed a three-year contract with Team CSC, starting from the 2006 season. Before the 2006 Paris-Roubaix he said he had never been better prepared[7] and by accelerating on the cobblestones in the forest of Arenberg, just less than 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[8] he kept expanding his lead for the remainder of the race[9] finishing one and a half minutes ahead of the riders closest to him. He became only the second Swiss winner of 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. [edit] 2007After a slow start to the season, Cancellara hit form in June, winning three 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, defeating Andreas Kloden of Astana by 13 seconds. According to online measurement published by www.srm.de his average power output was over 550W. 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, catching and overtaking a breakaway group of four in the final 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 an advantage of 52 seconds over Laszlo Bodrogi.[10] [edit] 2008.jpg) Cancellara won the prologue of the Tour of California ahead of Olympic track gold medalist Bradley Wiggins in his first race of the season. He then won the second edition of Italian Monte Paschi Eroica ahead of Alessandro Ballan. During the Tirreno-Adriatico he showed his improvement in stage races, winning the individual time trial to Recanati as well as the overall classification. Just a few days later in the Milan-Sanremo classic monument race, Cancellara broke away from a leading group in the final kilometres to win. In the 2008 edition of Paris-Roubaix, Cancellara finished 2nd behind Tom Boonen in a sprint finish. In preparation for the second half of the season, Cancellara 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 behind Stefan Schumacher, who was later found to have tested positive for EPO. Cancellara helped his teammate Carlos Sastre win the overall classification. In the Olympic Road Race in Beijing, Cancellara won the silver medal behind Spaniard Samuel Sanchez (gold). 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 six man uphill sprint[11], behind Davide Rebellin, who was later stripped of the silver medal for a doping offence[12]. Cancellara later won the Olympic Individual Time Trial, beating CSC-Saxo Bank teammate, Gustav Erik Larsson. Cancellara decided not to defend his World Time Trial title in Varese citing mental fatigue.[13] He was named Swiss Male Athlete of the Year at the Credit Suisse Sports Awards.[14] [edit] 2009Cancellara won the prologue of the Tour of California for the second year running. However, he then had a dip in form and could not defend his title at the Tirreno-Adriatico while not performing to his usual high level in any of the spring classics. He recaptured his best form at the Tour de Suisse by winning the prologue and staying with the leaders on the mountains to put him in a good position to win the overall on the final time-trial. He did win comfortably by over two minutes in the general classification while also winning the points jersey.[15] Cancellara won his first national road racing crown on 28 June 2009, outsprinting Mathias Frank at the line [16] He placed 1st in stage 1 of the 2009 Tour de France, a 15 km (9.3 mi) individual time trial. In the team time trial (4th stage), he was able to keep the yellow jersey with Lance Armstrong a mere 22 hundredths of a second behind. It was not until the seventh stage, the first true mountain stage, that Cancellara lost the yellow jersey. After falling behind the leaders with less than 10 km (6.2 mi) to go in the stage, he was unable to bridge the gap due to the sharp grade of the Arcalis mountain-top finish. He finished over 5 minutes back of Armstrong on the stage, falling to 39th place overall. In the 2009 UCI World Championships, Cancellara was a favourite in both the road race and time trial disciplines. He dominated the time trial event to take the coveted rainbow jersey by over a minute and a half. He looked to be among the strongest in the road race too, but eventually finished in fifth place. [edit] Career highlights
[edit] Footnotes
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Categories: 1981 births | Living people | People from the Canton of Bern | Swiss cyclists | Swiss Italians | Swiss Tour de France stage winners | Tour de France prologue winners | Vuelta a España stage winners | Olympic cyclists of Switzerland | Cyclists at the 2004 Summer Olympics | Cyclists at the 2008 Summer Olympics | Olympic gold medalists for Switzerland | Olympic silver medalists for Switzerland | World cycling champions | Tour de Suisse stage winners | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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