By Shane Stokes in Bern, with additional reporting by Bjorn Haake
Charging along with his race number 13 turned upside-down to ward off bad luck, Fabian Cancellara ended the Tour de Suisse as he had started it; winning against the clock in the rainbow jersey of the reigning world champion.
Many expected him to deliver the goods today and he didn't disappoint. He was the 50th rider to start and smashed the previous best set by teammate Stuart O'Grady. The big Swiss rider was 2'20 faster than the Aussie and this proved enough to hold off the efforts of all the others. German duo Klöden and Schumacher were closest, going 20 and 33 seconds slower, respectively.
Cancellara thus held true to the promise made last Sunday to perform strongly in front of his home crowd in Bern. After the race he travelled by helicopter to a TV studio in Zurich, thus missing the press conference. However he later expressed his satisfaction with the result.
"I'm extremely happy to have won here in my hometown. I'd hoped to win both time trials in this race, so it was perfect, really. The fact that I got three days in yellow was a nice bonus, too.
"I had some problems with my bike at the beginning, where the officials were saying that my bike was the wrong size. That took some of my focus away right at the very start of the stage, but I quickly regained my rhythm."
Vladimir Karpets (Caisse d'Epargne) took the overall Tour de Suisse win. Vladimir Gusev's (Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team) long break on stage seven earned him the mountains classification and Florian Stalder (Team Volksbank) took the intermediate sprints jersey.
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