Fabian Cancellara has admitted that the well-documented changes in his team in the past four years have played their part in his fluctuating fortunes.
Having left Saxo Bank in 2011 with the Schleck Brothers and several other stars to ride for Leopard Trek, the team have had three rebrandings in four seasons.
But Cancellara is positive that the new stability at Trek Factory Racing could play an important role in the team’s results.
“It was the first year of the new Trek team, it was perhaps not the year in which everything worked out for me," Cancellara said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger.
“The past four years have been very intense. There was always something happening [with the team] since I left the team of Bjarne Riis. The upcoming season is the first in which we have not changed the team manager or sponsor; the people have for the most part remained the same. This could be an important factor.”
One of Cancellara's main aims for the year was the World Championship road race, but he admits he was out-foxed by winner Michal Kwiatkowski. Cancellara says he saw Kwiatkowski's attack coming because he had planned to do it himself, if cramps had not put an end to his challenge.
The Tour of Flanders winner claims that the Pole got away so easily because no one was watching him.
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“The move Kwiatkowski made I had been thinking about for a while,” he said. “It was not a miracle of nature, something that is possible if nobody looks at you.”
The Trek rider had put all of his World Championship eggs in one basket. Cancellara forewent the time trial, won by Bradley Wiggins, to concentrate on the road race on a Ponferrada course that suited his strengths.
But Spartacus’ body was not on his side, with the rider admitting he does not know why he started cramping up.
“It was a rarity for me that the body simply shut off - although I was in the right shape,” he said. “I can’t see at the moment an error that could have caused this. Only the weather could be a factor, with the rain that came and went.
Stuart Clarke is a News Associates trained journalist who has worked for the likes of the British Olympic Associate, British Rowing and the England and Wales Cricket Board, and of course Cycling Weekly. His work at Cycling Weekly has focused upon professional racing, following the World Tour races and its characters.
