Fabian Cancellara has decided not to take the start of stage 11 of the Tour de France. On the rest day press conference, the Swiss announced that he will leave the race to focus on this later objectives.

The Tour de France has lost another key figure as Fabian Cancellara will not take the start tomorrow. With the rest of the race mostly made up of mountain stages, the Swiss will travel home to focus on his objectives in the second half of the season.

“I will travel home now and take a little break," he 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.”

Cancellara came to the Tour to be competitive. He came close to the victory and his 29th yellow jersey with a late attack in stage 1, finished fifth in stage 5 in Arenberg, defended his fifth place in the overall until an untimely puncture in the final of stage 7 and sprinted to second place in stage 9 to Mulhouse. 

“It was not only about the cobblestones stage for me," he said. "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 lost Andy (Schleck) and Danny (Van Poppel) early on, but the team is strong and will keep on looking for opportunities.”

“We brought Fabian to the Tour to be a factor where his skills allowed it and he didn’t disappoint," General Manager Luca Guercilena said. "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 20 km 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.

Cancellara will now focus on his main goal which is the world championships in Ponferrada. He is likely to ride the Vuelta to prepare for the races and is considering to make his hour record attempt at the end of the season, capitalizing on his Worlds condition.

With Cancellara out of the race, the Trek team is down to just 6 riders in the race.