Fabian Cancellara and Pascale Schnider win 2011 Swiss Road Championships
Leopard Trek team’s Fabian Cancellara won his second 2011 Swiss Road Championships title in Kirchdorf on Sunday, June 26, as he defeated BMC's Steve Morabito in a sprint.
The world champion of time trial took a total of 4 hours, 8 minutes and 56 seconds to cover the distance of 193.6 kilometres.
After winning the race, Fabian said, "It fills me with pride to wear the Swiss jersey, this is the second time I have won it, and I must say that I got attached to it the first time around."
Recently, Fabian won the prologue and ninth stage of Tour de Suisse and grabbed first spot in prologue Tour de Luxembourg. He also took the second spot in Milan-San Remo.
Stev Morabito of BMC racing was the runner-up and Martin Kohler was in the third spot with a difference of 1 minute and 29 seconds.
In the second lap of 20 of the race, a group of 15 riders got away and never got caught by the peloton. In the last third lap, a group of five riders made their first breakaway, including Fabian Cancellara, Steve Morabito (BMC Racing Team), Martin Kohler
and Oliver Zaugg (Leopard Trek).
The race was reduced by two laps to only 176 km, but only 31 riders, out of the total of 82 starters, finished the race.
Fabian maintained his speed and managed to pull away and only Morabito followed him. Cancellara managed to build a large gap and crossed the finish-line without any difficulty.
Fabian further added, "On the second to last time up the climb, I launched again and only Steve Morabito could follow, we rode into the final lap together, and because I wasn’t too sure about how strong Morabito felt, I preferred to let him set the pace
on the last climb. I knew that I was faster, so I could rely on my sprint."
The four riders from GS RUFALEX Rollladen team including Bernhard Furger, Michel Luginbuhl, Lionel Vare and Roman Andres were disqualified from the race.
In the women's category, Pascale Schnider (Team bike-import.ch) won the 2011 Swiss Road Championships. She covered the distance of 96.8 kilometres in 2 hours, 39 minutes and 19 seconds.
Patricia Schwager (Team Nederland Bloeit) was the runner-up with 17 seconds behind Pascale. Jennifer Hohl (MCipollini - Gibambenini) finished in the third spot with a difference of 38 seconds.
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