Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) at the Vuelta (Image credit: Sirotti)
Fabian Cancellara will lead team Switzerland on its home course at the World Championships next week in Mendrisio. Cancellara will race the time trial, which he won in 2006 and 2007, and the road race.
Cancellara's number one objective is the World road title, but he also wants to win the Worlds time trial, he said at the Vuelta a España. He withdrew from the Spanish Grand Tour on Sunday. He had won two time trial stages and held the leader's jersey for a total of five stages throughout this year's race.
Team Switzerland, according to radsport.ch • Fabian Cancellara • Michael Albasini • Rubens Bertogliati • Mathias Frank • Gregory Rast • Oliver Zaugg • David Loosli (reserve) • Florian Salzinger (reserve) • Steve Morabito (reserve)
Cancellara and Bertogliati will race the time trial, with Frank and Thomas Frei as reserves.
In addition to two time trial World titles, Cancellara took the Olympic time trial win last year in Beijing, China. This season, he won time trials in the Tour of California, Tour de Suisse, Tour de France and Vuelta a España. He won the Tour de Suisse overall classification and, his only road win, the Swiss Championships.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) confirmed last month the number of riders allowed for each nation. Ten nations may have the maximum number of nine riders, but some historically powerful nations can only bring six. The UCI decided the numbers based on team rankings as of August 15.
Switzerland, France and The Netherlands will have six-man teams, but countries like Great Britain, Norway and Luxembourg can bring nine.
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This year's road course, September 27, has two climbs, Acqua Fresca and Novazzano. It's a short 13.8-kilometre circuit repeated 19 times, 262.2 kilometres.
The time trial, September 24, covers three 16.6-kilometre circuits, 49.8 kilometres. The 650-metre long Rancate climb is the main difficulty with sections of 10 percent.
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