RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Fabian Cancellara capped his remarkable career with his second Olympic gold medal Wednesday, the retiring Swiss star powering over the hilly, rain-slicked course at the Rio Games to deny favorite Tom Dumoulin and British rival Chris Froome. He beat the best Time Trial has to offer in Tom Dumoulin, and the best Cycling has to offer in Chris Froome, into second and third respectively. “I can’t be disappointed, especially after the season I’ve had”, said Froome. This will not give me any doubts about this – my retirement continues. I was absolutely dead by the finish line.
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Instead his disappointing performance in Sunday’s road race, when he failed to pick up a medal, proved a sign of things to come.
“It was really important to me, and to be able to medal here after the summer I’ve had, it would just be incredible”.
“It’s been an incredible summer”. The Tour was the big target for me.
“I came into that corner a little too fast and the back wheel skipped out on the bumps and that was it”.
Froome said he could have no complaints about the result. It was certainly disappointing for Thomas who had been riding particularly well up until that point. I’m happy. Another medal is an incredible achievement. Nothing makes me more proud than to wear the Team GB jersey at the Olympic Games.
Pressed for a clarification of his wellbeing, he added: “I’m all right”.
Dennis was in second place for the first half of the 54.5km time trial at coastal Pontal, but the incident left him in fifth place, with a time of one hour 13 minutes 25 seconds. That’s definitely given him extra motivation, a carrot for him to chase.
He is now expecting to start the year’s third and final Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espana, on August 20, after having it on his Team Sky schedule since the beginning of the year.
And the route may be a familiar one.
Froome is confident that he can bounce back from his 12th in the road race – one place behind Thomas, who remounted to finish.
Kristin Armstrong, who won back-to-back titles in Beijing and London is another rider to watch out for as is US team-mate Evelyn Stevens.
Earlier in the day, Kristin Armstrong (USA) had won the women’s time trial ahead of Olga Zabelinskaya (Russia) and Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands).
Britain’s Emma Pooley would not be here if she did not fancy her chances of converting the silver she won in Beijing in 2008 to a gold.
While the field is littered with pure time trialists, the favourite is undoubtedly Froome.
“There are just no words to explain”.
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There was no stopping Cancellara though, and with the Swiss retiring at the end of the season, it was the ideal swansong for him, with pictures capturing him as he leapt out of the leader’s throne to celebrate the victory with his team.
