Fabian Cancellara will not start stage 11 of Tour

Eight-time Tour de France stage winner Fabian Cancellara will not resume the Tour de France after Tuesday’s first rest day.

“I will travel home now and take a little break,” Cancellara said. “The season has been long for me, starting back in Dubai. I have done 59 days of competition this season so far and I have another big goal at the end of this season: the world championships. It’s not a secret that I’d like to be in my best shape there, so it’s important that I take some rest.”

The four-time world time trial champion won the Ronde van Vlaanderen earlier in the season and also finished on the podium at Paris-Roubaix and Milano-Sanremo.

In the first 10 days of the 2014 Tour, Cancellara nearly won the first stage into Harrogate, which would have earned him his 29th yellow jersey. He also finished fifth on the cobbles in stage 5, and Cancellara sprinted to second place in stage 9.

“It was not only about the cobblestones stage for me,” said Cancellara. “The course for this year’s Tour is very attractive for a rider of my profile, I liked it. There were many opportunities and with a little more luck, I could have gone home with a result in the pocket. It’s been good to be back in the Tour.”

“We brought Fabian to the Tour to be a factor where his skills allowed it and he didn’t disappoint,” said Trek’s general manager Luca Guercilena. “He’s a rider that always comes to a race to give everything — if you just look at how he was working for Fränk (Schleck) yesterday at 20km from the finish in a mountain stage. Now he gets a short break and then we will build up his condition again to be at his best in Ponferrada.”