World Championships in Mendrisio: Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland / Saxo Bank) wins the time trial

Added: thursday 24 September 2009 at 22:59:00

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This week the World Championships cycling on the road take place in Mendrisio in Switzerland.

After the time trial for under 23 and the time trial for ladies yesterday, it was up to the men elite today to measure themselves in this solo effort.

Not really surprisingly Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland / Saxo Bank) won this time trial in his own country.
The route
The time trial took place around the city of Mendrisio on a hilly route (height difference: 120 meters) of 16,6 kilometers. Since the circuit was done 3 times by the riders the total distance of this time trial was 49,8 kilometers.
Spartacus' performance
Fabian Cancellara, nicknamed Spartacus, did his time trial with an average speed of 51,6 km/h, so he had no difficulty at all to take the rainbow jersey. He even took some time to sit up, thank "his" spectators and put his hands in the sky. You don't get to see that very often for a time trial!

After his first round, Cancellara already had a one minute gap on number 2 and in the two following rounds he continued to widen that gap.

His Swedish team mate Gustav Larsson finished second, partly thanks to Spartacus' performance. Larsson started one minute after Cancellara so his team mate passed him after the first round. From that moment on he could follow the Swiss rider as well as he could and by doing so he finally finihsed at 1'27" behind Cancellara.

De Duitser Tony Martin takes the bronze medal (at 2'30") which seemed to be destined to the British rider Bradley Wiggins. Indeed, Wiggins could benefit of the same "aspiration" effect as Larsson but got technical problems with his bike in the last tour, which made him lose his third place. Wiggins was very frustrated about that and even threw his bike away!

Fabian Cancellara took his third world title today after the World Championships in 2006 and 2007 (he currently also is the Olympic champion time trial). This year he already won the two first time trials - the first and the 7th stage - of the Vuelta 2009 and the prologue of the Tour de France 2009 in Monaco.
The other riders' performances
The former World Champion time trial, the German rider Bert Grabsch (Columbia-HTC), disappointed a bit with his 10th time at 3'37".

The Dutch rider Koos Moerenhout (Rabobank) finished 7th at 3'12" and the Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov (Astana) 8th at 3'21".
The American rider Tom Zirbel, who currently rides for a team which is not very well known in Europe (Bissell Pro Cycling Team) but who will join Garmin-Slipstream in 2010, finished 4th at 2'47".
The top 10
The classification of the 10 best riders is as follows:

1/ Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland / Saxo Bank) - 57:55.74
2/ Gustav Larsson (Sweden / Saxo Bank) - 59:22.87 (+1:27.13)
3/ Tony Martin (Germany / Columbia-HTC) - 1:00:25.92 (+2:30.18)
4/ Tom Zirbel (United States / Bissell Pro Cycling Team) - 1:00:42.86 (+2:47.12)
5/ Marco Pinotti (Italy / Columbia-HTC) - 1:00:58.62 (+3:02.88)
6/ Janez Brajkovic (Slovenia / Astana) - 1:01:04.23 (+3:08.49)
7/ Koos Moerenhout (The Netherlands / Rabobank) - 1:01:07.33 (+3:11.59)
8/ Alexandre Vinokourov (Kazakhstan / Astana) - 1:01:16.69 (+3:20.95)
9/ Ignatas Konovalovas (Lituania / Cervélo TestTeam) - 1:01:29.62 (+3:33.88)
10/ Bert Grabsch (Germany / Columbia-HTC) - 1:01:33.13 (+3:37.39)

in the top 10 we thus find 3 riders of the Columbia-HTC team, 2 riders of Saxo Bank and 2 riders of Astana.

> click here for the full list of results
by Thomas Vergouwen
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