Fabian Cancellara

He finished in the 73rd place and over ten minutes behind the winner.

His next success came in the brief 3.4 km prologue at the Tour de Romandie.

Fabian Cancellara (born 18 March 1981), nicknamed "Spartacus", is a Swiss cycling executive, businessman and former professional road racing cyclist who last rode for UCI ProTeam.

He was born in Wohlen bei Bern, Switzerland.

Cancellara began road cycling after falling in love with an old bike at the age of thirteen.

Fabian Cancellara was born on 18 March 1981, in Wohlen bei Bern, Switzerland, to a Swiss mother and an Italian Swiss father.

He discovered cycling at the age of 13 after falling in love with an old family bike that he had found in the garage and immediately gave up football to concentrate on cycling.

In addition, Cancellara excelled at cross-country skiing during his youth.

Cancellara's cycling skills began to blossom at an early age, when he impressed as a time trialist and dominated Swiss junior cycling.

Yvan Girard, Swiss national junior team coach from 1997 to 2005, was quoted saying that Cancellara was "head and shoulders above everyone else" in the time trials.

After that, he began to take the sport more seriously and won two consecutive World Junior Time Trial Championships in 1998 and 1999.

At age nineteen he turned professional and signed with the team, where he rode as a stagiaire.

He is known for being a quality time trialist, a one-day classics specialist, and a workhorse for his teammates who have general classification aspirations.

He won the junior World Time Trial Championship in both 1998 and 1999 and at the age of 19 he came in second at the 2000 U-23 World Time Trial Championship.

After his second-place finish at the Under-23 time trial championship, Cancellara turned professional with, which was one of the strongest teams in the world at the time.

Since turning professional in 2000, Cancellara has ridden for four professional teams.

He has achieved great success in the classic monuments; he has won Paris–Roubaix three times, the Milan–San Remo once, and the Tour of Flanders three times.

Cancellara has won the opening stage of the Tour de France five times and has led the race for 29 days total, which is the most of any rider who has not won the Tour.

His success has not been limited to just time trials and classics, as he has won general classification of the Tirreno–Adriatico, Tour de Suisse, and the Tour of Oman.

Cancellara rode as a stagiaire for the team in late 2000 before joining the team for the 2001 season as a member of the "Young Riders Project".

Cancellara's first victory as a professional came at the prologue of the Tour of Rhodes, where he also won the overall final general classification.

For 2002 the Mapei team split into two formations per UCI regulations, the "Top Team" with 25 riders and the GS-III "Gruppo Giovani" (youth group) to develop young talents, which Cancellara joined with other riders including Filippo Pozzato, Michael Rogers and Bernhard Eisel.

Giorgio Squinzi, the head of Mapei firm, later said in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport that he took Cancellara and Pozzato all the way from the Junior category to Mapei's top team, in order to let them avoid the Under-23 category where he suggested that doping was even worse than among professionals.

Squinzi also said that Cancellara was going to be "The future Miguel Induráin".

During his two seasons with Mapei, Cancellara used his time trialling skills to great effect, winning several individual time trials and a total of eleven victories.

Following the folding of at the end of the 2002 season, Cancellara joined to work as a lead-out man for Alessandro Petacchi in 2003.

Cancellara's first victory came Tour Méditerranéen; he helped lead the Fassa Bortolo squad to victory in the race's final stage, which was a team time trial.

On 6 April, Cancellara raced his first ever classic in the Tour of Flanders.

After winning a few stages and small races in his starting years, Cancellara earned his first major victory at the 2004 Tour de France where he won the opening prologue time trial and wore the race leader yellow jersey for one day.

The following season saw fewer victories, but his 2006 season saw a victory in the men's time trial at the UCI Road World Championships, along with victory at the Paris–Roubaix.

Cancellara repeated as world champion in the time trial the next year, along with winning two stages at the Tour de France.

During the 2008 calendar he won gold at the Summer Olympics in the individual time trial event and the Milan–San Remo.

The next season saw Cancellara again become world time trial champion and lead both the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España.

In 2008, he won gold in the individual time trial and silver in the men's road race at the Summer Olympics.

In 2010, he won the Paris–Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders.

Cancellara's 2011 and 2012 campaigns were both short in number of victories, while the latter was hampered by injuries throughout.

After a lackluster two-year period, Cancellara again won the Tour of Flanders and Paris–Roubaix double in 2013.

In 2014, Cancellara repeated as winner of the Tour of Flanders.

In 2016, he won Olympic gold in the individual time trial for the second time in his career.

In addition, Cancellara has been the time trial world champion four times in his career.