The sky was a palette of greys, the clouds concocting fierce, horizontal winds that whipped up and hammered the persistent hard rain into the windows incessantly. The thermometer registered three degrees.
Workers, parents and children all left their houses wrapped in their most protective winter coats, wondering when March would relent and offer some respite.
Inside the walls of a Belgian hotel in Kortrijk, an animated Fabian Cancellara opened the blinds, smiled. “He could not lie in his bed,” his teammate Matti Breschel laughs. “He was an energy bomb.”
The Danish Saxo Bank team were staying in the Flandrian town for four weeks as part of the 2010 northern Classics races and Cancellara was tipped as one of the favourites.
In his own unassuming, shruggingof-the-shoulders manner, he waved it all off. “He was dealing with the pressure and nervousness in his own way,” Breschel remembers. “He never isolated himself and was very social. He was fun to be around.”
Talk on the outside was a reflection of talk on the inside. “I think people maybe underestimated him a bit because you couldn’t really see if he was concentrated,” Breschel explains. “But the more he spoke about himself, the more confidence he got. And he was speaking about himself constantly, in the third person, practising this and that. In his charming way, he was a bit of a prima donna, but with a glint in his eye. I thought, ‘OK, man, this guy is onto something special.’”
Breschel’s assumptions would prove to be correct. In the following weeks, Cancellara would go on to win the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, becoming just the 10th rider to do so in the same season. Months later, he would lead the Tour de France for six days, and then wrap up a season of eight wins by becoming time trial world champion for the fourth consecutive time.
この記事は CYCLING WEEKLY の June 18, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は CYCLING WEEKLY の June 18, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
CLASSIC BIKE COLNAGO SUPER
A trailblazing bike immortalised by Merckx and Saronni
"Strava activities are the only way I know some of my friends are still alive"
...or that Bernard is doing his weekly shop
AN EXPERT'S TAKE ON... SADDLE SELECTION
Crucial advice to guide your next purchase
JUST A NUMB#R?
Approaching a landmark birthday, Charlie Graham-Dixon explores how ageing affects cycling performance and what can be done to stay ahead of the curve
RURAL PERIL
More UK cyclists are killed on rural lanes than on busy city streets. Rob Kemp investigates why and what can be done to keep us safe while riding in the countryside
A BLESSED RIDE THROUGH THE FOREST OF BOWLAND
Forgoing cloak, cassock and cross, Trevor Ward goes in search of the holy roads that helped make a Tour winner
Dame Sarah Storey claims road and 19th gold double
More success for Team GB's Paralympians in Paris, but Storey slams women's time trial course
Roglič matches Vuelta win record
Slovenian takes fourth Tour of Spain title after hunting down O'Connor's lead, writes Adam Becket
Williams crowned Tour of Britain champion
Welshman leads home resurgence at the stage race to crown an Israel-Premier Tech clean sweep, reports Tom Davidson in Felixstowe
CLASSIC BIKE CLAUD BUTLER OLYMPIC ROAD
Iconic British brand's Holdsworth-era road bike