Cancellara leaves Vuelta a España to prepare for Worlds

Fabian Cancellara has brought his Vuelta a España to an end in order to focus on his preparation for the upcoming world championships. His Trek Factory Racing team confirmed on Thursday morning that Cancellara would not take the start of stage 18 in A Estrada.

“[Cancellara] is a DNS today. He will travel home to rest up and prepare for his next goal: the Worlds TTT in Ponferrada,” the team announced via Twitter.

Cancellara has already confirmed that he will forgo the individual time trial at the world championships in order to focus his attention on the road race. He has won the Worlds time trial on four occasions and took bronze in Florence last year.

While Cancellara will line up in the team time trial in Ponferrada, he has long professed that the world championships road race is the centrepiece of the second part of a season that has already seen him land victory at the Tour of Flanders.

Cancellara’s previous best showing at the world championships was his fourth place finish in Copenhagen in 2011, and he was an aggressive presence en route to finishing fifth on home roads in Mendrisio two years previously.

The Swiss rider has shown signs of form during the final week of this Vuelta, enjoying a cameo off the front of the peloton on the mountainous stage to La Farrapona on Monday and then finishing third in the bunch sprint in A Coruña on stage 17.

Cancellara’s fellow world championships contender Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) is also a non-starter at the Vuelta on Thursday, while Nacer Bouhanni and Peter Sagan abandoned the race at the beginning of the third week.