In a sport as steeped in nostalgia as cycling, Fabian Cancellara (Trek-Segafredo) should have known that he would not be able to talk simply about the here and now when he met with the press on Friday afternoon ahead of his final Tour of Flanders.
No sooner had Cancellara settled into his seat in the conference room at the Weinebrugge Hotel near Bruges, than he was asked if his approach to the Ronde had been influenced by the knowledge that it would be last participation in the race.
“I know it’s the last everything, even the last press conference,” Cancellara said with a jaded smile. “But these thoughts come after. I’ve been looking into the race. I’m fully concentrated. I have beautiful memories but I want to perform and there’s no space for that if you want to perform.”
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Cancellara, winner in 2010, 2013 and 2014, is one of six men to have claimed the Tour of Flanders on three occasions and victory on Sunday would give him the outright record. Since the turn of the decade, Cancellara has often given the impression of a man racing with one eye already fixed on his place in posterity, but on Friday he downplayed the significance of becoming the first four-time Ronde winner.
“It would mean a lot, it would be history, but on the end I look on it as a bike race, one of the most beautiful bike races of the year,” he said. “For me, the first thing is to race. If it [the record] comes, it comes. What I can say now is arriving here at 100 percent is what I wanted to achieve. I will do everything in my hands – in my legs – to push and get the result.”
Cancellara’s fast start to his final season in the professional ranks, not to mention his strong showings at E3 Harelbeke and Gent-Wevelgem last weekend, have marked him out – what’s new? – as the bookmakers’ and media’s favourite for the Tour of Flanders, ahead of world champion Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) and defending champion Alexander Kristoff (Katusha).
- See also: Tour of Flanders: I'm not happy with second place any more, says Van Avermaet
- Sagan: There’s no ‘right’ strategy for the Tour of Flanders
- Kristoff: I am not a big favourite for the Tour of Flanders
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