Four-time TT world champion says he has lost motivation for Hour Record
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John Degenkolb (Giant Shimano) and Fabian Cancellara (Trek) shake hands)(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Fabian Cancellara (Trek) drops back to the team car for a bidon(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Fabian Cancellara leads Sep Vanmarcke on the Oude Kwaremont(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
A reflective Fabian Cancellara (Image credit: Ilario Biondi/Bettini Photo)
Fabian Cancellara (Trek) beat Greg Van Avermaet for second(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Fabian Cancellara believes the increased stability at Trek Factory Racing could help improve his results in 2015. Speaking in an interview with a Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger, the four-time world time trial champion and cobbled Classics winner also confirmed he has lost motivation go for the newly revised Hour Record on the track.
Cancellara moved from Saxo Bank to Leopard-Trek in 2011 when it was a Luxembourg-registered outfit. Radioshack took over sponsorship the following two years, with Trek stepping up as owners this season and moving the team's registration to the US for the 2014 season.
Cancellara scored just two wins this season, taking his third victory at Tour of Flanders and grabbing another Swiss time trial national championship. The 33-year-old came close at Milan-San Remo and Pari-Roubaix, where he finished second and third, respectively, and at the world championships in September he made the final selection but was unable to close the deal, settling for 11th behind winner Michael Kwiatowski of Poland.
"I will make no secret of it: It was the first year of the new Trek team," Cancellara said.
"It was perhaps not the year in which everything worked out for me. The past four years have been very intense. There was always something since I left Bjarne Riis team. The upcoming season is the first in which we have not changed the team manager or sponsor. The people, for the most part, have remained the same. This could be an important factor."
Ten weeks after watching the chances for his first-ever road race rainbow jersey slip away up the road with the young Polish rider, Cancellara said he was not surprised by Kwiatowski's successful solo move late in the race. He had been considering making the same move before cramps shut down his efforts.
"It is rare that my body simply shuts off even though the fitness was right," he said. "I see nowhere at the moment an error that could have caused this. Only the weather could be a factor, with the rain that came and went."
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Cancellara told the newspaper it took a while for him to shed his disappointment from the world championships, but he is looking forward to the new season, when he will once again target the Spring Classics and the world championships. But an attempt at the hour record may not happen now that the UCI has changed the rules to allow modern aerodynamic equipment.
"I have somewhat lost motivation in the project," Cancellara said, adding that before the rule change he had planned to challenge the record on the same Mexico City velodrome that Eddy Merckx used to set the record in 1972.
"Now I have to go to the new record holder Matthias Brandle."
