Schleck tips teammate, still hopes to win

By Shane Stokes in Bern

"Cancellara will win tomorrow – I am sure of that," Frank Schleck said at the finish of stage eight of the Tour de Suisse.

As for himself, he told Cyclingnews that he still thought the overall victory was possible. He will start the TT in fifth place overall, 33" off yellow. "We know that Vladimir Karpets and Kim Kirchen can do good time trials…I am not sure about Efimkin. But when you are leading the general classification you can always do a good one as you are super-motivated. But I am motivated too! So I hope a do a good time trial. It is very open. It has been a very, very hard Tour de Suisse."

Schleck dominated on the first day in the mountains and many believed that on the basis of that display, he would hold onto the yellow jersey until the end. However he cracked two days later on a stage won by Thomas Dekker (Rabobank).

"I felt tired on the day of Crans Montana," he said. "It wasn’t my day, I don’t know why. Yesterday was okay [to the summit finish at Grimselpass], I showed that I was up there. I had a little incident in the last 400 metres when my chain dropped. That is why I lost a little bit of time. But I was going okay."