Fabian Cancellara: "I could raise my hands whenever I felt like it"

Team CSC's Fabian Cancellara used last week's World Championships to prove he is the best time trialist in the World right now, as he swept all competition aside and captured the gold medal, he had been dreaming about for years.

"It was a major relief. I've been working towards this for so long. It's my specialty, so of course I've pushed myself to the limit in order to be the best in this particular discipline," says the Swiss tempo rider on Monday, while heading back from the WC camp in Salzburg.

In the race on Thursday Cancellara didn't need to sprint across the line, as he did a couple of weeks ago in the Vuelta, where David Millar beat him with less than a second.

"I'd received reports from Kim Andersen in the sports director's car during the race. A couple of kilometers before the finish, he said I could raise my hands whenever I felt like it, because my lead was so big. But I just told him, that I didn't wanna know, after my narrow defeat in Spain,” laughs Cancellara, who was a double time trial World Champion as a junior rider and also won a silver medal in the U/23 championships.

Already from the start of Thursday's race, it was obvious how focused Cancellara was, and a key factor was the fast cadence.

"I always try to keep a high cadence instead of riding in a big gear, but lots of people have told me, the cadence was really high on Thursday. I haven't seen the race on TV yet, but I will when I get back home to Switzerland. After my second place in the Vuelta time trial, I worked on getting the perfect position on the bike and the right cadence and some other things, and it all came together nicely and it was just a perfect day," says a happy Cancellara.

The gold medal did not come as a surprise to Cancellara, who was actually more surprised by how well he did in the road race on Sunday, where he made several attacks in the lead group towards the end.

"The race started out quite bad for me, I felt like I hadn't recovered well from the time trial, but tactically I did the right thing, and then my legs were great in the end," says Cancellara, who with about 10 kilometers to go, tried to split the lead group ahead of the final climb.

"I felt so good, I just had to do something, cause I knew I wasn't able to win a bunch sprint, so I went full gas and hoped the other riders wouldn't be able to follow me. In the Tour of Denmark I won a stage the same way, but unfortunately it didn't work out this time," Cancellara explains.

Fabian Cancellara, who expects to end his season in his home country in Sunday's Züri Metzgete, also wants to thank all the fans, who supported him in his quest for the gold medal:

"There were lots of fans from all the Nordic countries and from Switzerland, who all supported me in Salzburg. It was incredible to see so many Team CSC fans and fans from Switzerland - it was a very beautiful day.”