Fabian Cancellara

Fabian Cancellara

Cancellara in 2007
Personal information
Full name	Fabian Cancellara
Nickname	Spartacus Tony Montana
Date of birth	March 18, 1981 (1981-03-18) (age 28)
Country	Switzerland
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Weight	80 kg (180 lb/13 st)
Team information
Current team	Team CSC Saxo Bank
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Time-Trialist/Classics specialist
Amateur team(s)
2000	Mapei (stagiare)
Professional team(s)
2001–2002 2003–2005 2006–	Mapei Fassa Bortolo Team CSC Saxo Bank
Major wins
World Time-Trial Champion (2006, 2007) Olympic Time Trial Champion (2008) Swiss Time-Trial Champion (2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) Tour de France, 3 stages Paris-Roubaix (2006) Milan-Sanremo (2008) Tirreno-Adriatico (2008) Points jersey, Tour de Suisse (2008)
Infobox last updated on:
November 12, 2008

Fabian Cancellara (born March 18, 1981) is a Swiss professional road bicycle racer for UCI ProTeam Team CSC. A time trial specialist, he has been two time World Time Trial Champion and is the current Olympic gold medalist. He is also a winner of Paris-Roubaix, Milan-Sanremo, Tirreno-Adriatico and two prologues of the Tour de France.

Cancellara and his wife Stefanie have one daughter, Giuliana.

Career

Early years

Cancellara was born in Wohlen bei Bern, a municipality near the city of Berne, in 1981 to an Italian mother and Swiss-German father. He discovered cycling at the age of 13 after falling in love with an old family bike that he found in the garage and immediately gave up football to concentrate on cycling.^[1]

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.^[2] 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.

2001-2002 (Mapei)

Cancellara 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.^[3] 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".^[4] 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.

2003-2005 (Fassa Bortolo)

Following 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^[5] 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.

2006 (Team CSC)

Fabian Cancellara in the 9. stage of the 2007 Tour de Suisse

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^[6] 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^[7] he kept expanding his lead for the remainder of the race^[8] 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.

2007 (Team CSC)

After 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 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, 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.^[9]

2008 (Team CSC Saxo Bank)

Fabian Cancellara in the Prologue of the 2008 Tour of California

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 bronze medal behind Spaniard Samuel Sanchez (gold) and Italian Davide Rebellin (silver). 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.^[10] He later won the Olympic Individual Time Trial, beating CSC-Saxo Bank teammate, Gustav Erik Larsson.

Career highlights

Medal record
Competitor for  Switzerland
Road bicycle racing
Olympic Games
Gold	2008 Beijing	Men's Road Time Trial
Bronze	2008 Beijing	Men's road race
World Championships
Gold	2006 Salzburg	Elite Men's Time Trial
Gold	2007 Stuttgart	Elite Men's Time Trial
Bronze	2004 Verona	Elite Men's Time Trial
Bronze	2005 Madrid	Elite Men's Time Trial
U-23 World Championships
Silver	2000 Plouay	U-23 Men's Time Trial
Junior World Championships
Gold	1998 Valkenburg	Junior Men's Time Trial
Gold	1999 Verona	Junior Men's Time Trial

Footnotes

External links

• Official site
• Team CSC profile
• Trap-Friis profile
• Fabian Cancellara profile
• Fabian Cancellara profile at the Cycling Website