Fabian Cancellara

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Fabian Cancellara

Cancellara at the 2005 HEW Cyclassics
Personal information
Full name	Fabian Cancellara
Nickname	Spartacus
Date of birth	March 18, 1981 (1981-03-18) (age 27)
Country	Switzerland
Height	1.86 m (6 ft 1 in)
Weight	80 kg (180 lb/13 st)
Team information
Current team	Team CSC
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All-rounder
Amateur team(s)
2000	Mapei (stagiare)
Professional team(s)
2001–2002 2003–2005 2006–	Mapei Fassa Bortolo Team CSC
Major wins
World Time-Trial Champion (2006, 2007) Tour de France, 3 stages Paris-Roubaix (2006) Milan-Sanremo (2008) Tirreno-Adriatico (2008) National Time-Trial Champion (2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007)
Infobox last updated on:
March 18, 2008

Fabian Cancellara (born March 18, 1981) 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. He is also a winner of Paris-Roubaix, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-Sanremo and two prologues of Tour de France.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 2003-2005 (Fassa Bortolo) 1.2 2006 (Team CSC) 1.3 2007 (Team CSC) 1.4 2008 (Team CSC) 2 Career highlights 3 Footnotes 4 External links

[edit] Biography

Cancellara was born in Wohlen bei Bern, and already in his junior years, he impressed as a time trialist. In both 1998 and 1999 he won the junior World Time Trial Championship. At the age of 19, he came in second at the U/23 World Time Trial Championship, after which he turned professional with Mapei-Quick Step, then one of the strongest teams in the world.

Cancellara and his wife Stefanie have one daughter, Giuliana.

[edit] 2003-2005 (Fassa Bortolo)

In his first pro-years Cancellara won several smaller races, but when he switched to Fassa Bortolo in 2003, he managed to win the prologues of the big races Tour de Romandie and Tour de Suisse. 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.

In 2005, Cancellara was one of the favourites for the Paris-Roubaix, but a flat tire 46 kilometers from the finish line^[1] 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.

[edit] 2006 (Team CSC)

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 Paris-Roubaix 2006 he said he had never been better prepared^[2] 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^[3] he kept on expanding his lead for the remainder of the race^[4] 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. Later that year, he won the World Time Trial Championships in Salzburg, Austria.

[edit] 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.^[5]

[edit] 2008 (Team CSC)

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.

[edit] Career highlights

Medal record
Competitor for  Switzerland
Road bicycle racing
World Championships
Gold	2007 Stuttgart	Elite Men's Time Trial
Gold	2006 Salzburg	Elite Men's Time Trial
Bronze	2005 Madrid	Elite Men's Time Trial
Silver	2000 Plouay	U-23 Men's Time Trial
Gold	1998 Valkenburg	Junior Men's Time Trial
Gold	1999 Verona	Junior Men's Time Trial

Sporting positions
Preceded by Michael Rogers	World Time Trial Champion 2006,2007	Succeeded by Incumbent
Preceded by Tom Boonen	Winner of Paris-Roubaix 2006	Succeeded by Stuart O'Grady

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ BOONEN KING OF THE CLASSICS, A.S.O., 2005
2. ^ Cancellara: Never Been Better Prepared, Team-CSC
3. ^ Timely victory for Siwtzerland’s Cancellara, A.S.O., April 9, 2006
4. ^ The race, A.S.O., April 9, 2006
5. ^ www.cyclingnews.com presents the World Championships

[edit] External links

• Official site
• Team CSC profile
• Trap-Friis profile
• Fabian Cancellara profile

v • d • e Riders on Team CSC Kurt Asle Arvesen | Lars Bak | Michael Blaudzun | Lasse Bøchman | Matti Breschel | Fabian Cancellara | Íñigo Cuesta | Matthew Goss | Juan José Haedo | Volodymyr Hustov | Allan Johansen | Bobby Julich | Kasper Klostergaard | Alexandr Kolobnev | Karsten Kroon | Gustav Erik Larsson | Marcus Ljungqvist | Anders Lund | Jason McCartney | Bradley McGee | Stuart O'Grady | Carlos Sastre | Andy Schleck | Fränk Schleck | Chris Anker Sørensen | Nicki Sørensen | Jurgen Van Goolen | Jens Voigt | Manager: Bjarne Riis

Persondata
NAME	Cancellara, Fabian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Road bicycle racer
DATE OF BIRTH	1981-03-18
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wohlen bei Bern, Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH