Home rider Fabian Cancellara is the favorite to win the Tour of Switzerland after a strong performance on the final mountain stage on Saturday.
German Tony Martin won the eighth and penultimate stage, a 181km journey from Le Sentier to Crans-Montana, with a late attack, but Cancellara finished third to move within four seconds of overall leader Tadej Valjavec of Slovenia.
Last year’s race winner Roman Kreuziger of the Czech Republic is third, 28 seconds off the pace.
PHOTO: EPA
HOME TOWN FINISH
The Tour ends in Cancellara’s home town of Berne with a 39km individual time trial.
PHOTO: EPA
The Swiss won the gold medal in the time trial at last year’s Beijing Olympics and is widely expected to snatch victory from Valjavec.
“I won the opening time trial last Saturday, but I honestly didn’t think I had a chance of winning overall. I realized perhaps I could on Wednesday in Serfaus when I finished second on the tough finish,” Cancellara told reporters.
“Fortunately, I’ve been able to stay close to Valjavec, which has also been thanks to some great work by my teammates,” he said. “Now we’ll see what happens in the time trial. It’s a testing course and it will be an all-out 50 minute effort. That makes it difficult to say how it will go. I’m on form, but so are a lot of other riders.”
Martin gave Team Columbia their sixth victory of the race on Saturday.
LONE ATTACK
Like teammate Kim Kirchen on Friday, Martin attacked alone in the last kilometer and held off second-placed Italian Damiano Cunego. Cancellara was third, two seconds adrift.
“I tried to win yesterday, but it didn’t work out. This time I waited for the final 500m and went for it,” Martin said. “I saw Cunego was getting close, but I made it to the finish.”
Martin is excellent in the time trial, but he predicted Cancellara would win the final stage.
“I think I can do a good ride, but I don’t think anybody has a chance against Cancellara,” he said.
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