San Remo Win Just Like A Spielberg Film, Says Fabian Cancellara
SAN REMO, Italy, March 23, 2008 (AFP) - Switzerland’s Fabian Cancellara said he will continue spreading his victory horizons after claiming his second major victory on Italian soil inside a week, at Milan-San Remo.
Finishing on the podium of the Tour de France may be a long-term ambition for the Swiss rider, born to Italian parents.
But for now the 27-year-old powerhouse from Berne is happy to savor a first win at Italy’s biggest one-day classic, before looking ahead to the Tour of Flanders in two weeks time.
Last week Cancellara claimed a first major stage race win at the week-long Tirreno-Adriatico, where his time trialling skills proved decisive.
On Saturday the skills that have won him the past two world titles were again on display, Cancellara pulling away from a small leading group inside the final two kilometres to stun the entire sprint field.
It was Switzerland’s first victory in the race known as the ‘Primavera’ since Erich Maechler triumphed 21 years ago.
“Everything happened as though it was a film, as though Steven Spielberg had wrote the script,” said Cancellara, overjoyed to have come over the finish line on his own with a few seconds to spare on a small group of chasers.
“I looked behind me because I wanted to make sure I had won the way I had.
The last rider to win San Remo like that was (Andre) Tchmil in 1999.
“But he done a solo attack for 800 metres, while I did two kilometres.”
Cancellara had spent the earlier part of this season honing his climbing skills in California.
And that early season work came in handy on the Le Manie climb, included by organisers in a deliberate attempt to toughen up a race which many felt was finishing in bunch sprints far too often.
“We all knew the new climb would change things. It was there that the tempo was fastest, and that creamed off a lot of the sprinters,” added Cancellara.
“Even I had trouble keeping pace.”
Germany’s Christian Knees, whose job was to try and deliver Milram team-mate Alessandro Petacchi to a perfect lead-out position for the bunch sprint, said Le Manie had changed everything.
“The new climb Le Manie cost a lot of strength,” said Knees.
After the Cipressa climb, where Italian Olympic champion Paolo Bettini had pulled a few riders with him after a solo attack, Cancellara asked his CSC team to up the pace.
Bettini’s group were eventually caught, and after several attacks in the closing 10 km Cancellara waited for the right moment to pounce.
“It wasn’t the kind of attack you can plan that morning in the team bus, it was pure instinct. It was the same kind of attack that I used to win at Compiegne.”
Cancellara’s Tour de France stage victory at Compiegne in 2007 will go down as one of the finest solo performances in the race’s history.
However it will sit nicely alongside his triumph at the prestigious Paris-Roubaix classic, which he won for the first time in 2006.
This year, Paris-Roubaix - won last year by his Australian teammate Stuart O’Grady - is also on his mind.
“What I did at Roubaix, I can do again,” he added.
“But my main objective for the classics season is the Tour of Flanders. In the past I’ve made a lot of mistakes but I feel ready and think I can win it.”
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