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Fabian Cancellara abandons in 3rd stage of the 2015 Vuelta a España

  • Ron 

After his crash in the third stage of the Tour de France, Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing) again had to abandon in stage three of the 2015 Vuelta a España. Cancellara, suffering from stomach problems due to a virus he picked up last week, was unable to finish the stage Monday.

Fabian Cancellara has had his share of bad luck this year. He’s battled ill health a few times, but more importantly he suffered from two major crashes with two similar injuries. He broke two vertebrae in E3 Prijs Harelbeke and again in the third stage of the Tour de France.

Fabian Cancellara recovered quite fast from his last injury and he trained and worked really hard to get back in shape to be able to take the start at the Vuelta. “The bad thing of training so hard is that you become very vulnerable for viruses and infections. And that is exactly what happened to Fabian,” explained Luca Guercilena, general manager of Trek Factory Racing.

Early in Monday’s third stage, from Mijas to Málaga, Cancellara had to let the peloton go. He lost contact after 60kms, at the bottom of the Puerto del León, a category one climb. He kept going on his own, even though he knew he was out of the time limit. He was pushing himself hard, and at one point it was obvious he was going too far over his limit that sports director Josu Larrazabal told him to stop, even though Fabian himself wanted to continue.

Cancellara: “After a year like this, you just don’t want to stop. I was alone on the road and had a lot of flashbacks of the past year. But I was feeling totally empty and in the end the most important thing is your health and we had to think about that too.”

Trek Factory Racing’s doctor, Dr. Ortwin Schaeffer, gave further explanation: “Fabian got caught by a gastrointestinal infection, a virus. He lost a lot of water and electrolytes and yesterday he also had a fever. He lost two kilos during yesterday’s stage and since he couldn’t eat, he could not fill up his reserves. With this heat and this extreme effort, it was just impossible to continue in such a condition.”

“Fabian is returning to Switzerland on Tuesday where he will have a complete health checkup and after that we will decide what will be the best plan and race calendar to pursue the work that was already done before the Vuelta,” concluded Guercilena.

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