Cancellara rides hardest kilometer to win stage
COMPIEGNE, France: Tour de France leader Fabian Cancellara set out on Tuesday intending to keep safe in the bunch and ended the day with a hard-earned stage victory.
The Swiss CSC rider took advantage of the peloton's late reining in of four fugitives to claim victory in the race's longest stage - 236.5 km from Waregem in Belgium.
The yellow jersey holder burst out of the main pack 300 metres from the finish and caught sprinters Erik Zabel and Danilo Napolitano cold.
"I expected a quiet day in the bunch," Cancellara told reporters.
When the four fugitives built a 16-minute gap early in the stage, however, the time-trial world champion was forced to work hard over the closing kilometers.
"My first goal was not to crash," said Cancellara, who was involved in Monday's massive pile-up in Ghent and started the stage with his hand bandaged.
"It was a very, very long day, we were facing the wind so we couldn't ride fast. That's why we spent some seven hours on the bike.
"But in the last kilometers, I was made to work to help my team mates catch the fugitives. Then I figured I could have a chance to do something."
Cancellara, a winner of the Paris-Roubaix race in 2006, burst through to win in Compiegne, where the queen of the classics usually starts.
"Winning here in Compiegne is quite strange. I'm used to starting from here, not arriving," he said.
"Now I need a couple of hours to realize what I have achieved.
"Anyway, it was the hardest kilometer of my life."
Agencies
(China Daily 07/12/2007 page24)
