The 70th Tour of Poland came to an exciting conclusion on Saturday with an individual 37km time trial.

Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack-Leopard), as expected, took an early lead as he bested the time clocked by Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing Team) but was subsequently outclassed by Bradley Wiggins (Sky).

That defeat, however, did not dishearten the Swiss time trial specialist as he continues to prepare for his great objective of the second half of the season – the world time trial championships in Florence, Italy.

Eventually, Cancellara finished as runner-up, 56 seconds down on Wiggins, and admitted afterwards that he had suffered on the 37km course, particularly on the undulating opening section.

“I didn’t really have the greatest feelings on the bike. I felt quite tired after this tough week of racing.  It was very hard and then of course doing the time trial at the very end is never easy. I did what I had to do. From what I felt before the race and during, the results were actually ok.  The parcours wasn’t perfect for me. It was very hard, up and down a lot but the second half was more to my liking,” Cancellara told the RadioShack-Leopard website. 

Cancellara preferred to look to the future rather than dwell on his loss to Wiggins.

“I keep in mind where I am in my training right now. I was sick before I came here and then this was a very hard week so I think I did good work and this is a good foundation. Wiggins looked comfortable yesterday; he didn’t look like he suffered too much. A minute is a lot of time to lose but considering the course, I’m not too unhappy about it. Now I go to Trek World and then the Vuelta.”