Olympic gold medalist Fabian Cancellara said the Great Wall of China gave him inspiration as he powered his way to two medals at the Beijing Games.
"This wall was giving me the power and the strength because when you see more than 5,000 km of this wall and the hard work they had to do this," the Swiss cyclist said on Wednesday, after winning his second road cycling Olympic medal.
"Maybe this was a sign that I had to do the same and I did the same," added Cancellara, who rode the 47.3km race in just over one hour and two min.
He beat Sweden's Gustav Larsson by 33 sec while Levi Leipheimer of the United States took bronze, more than one min behind Cancellara.
The Great Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage site, winds up and down across desserts, grasslands and mountains and stretches from east to west in China.
Since Cancellara competed in both the road race and the time trial, he spent a lot of time near the Great Wall, although he was likely not paying much attention during the races.
In the 245km road race the cyclists rode 80km from ancient Beijing then completed seven laps of a tough, hilly circuit between two sections of the wall. During Wednesday's time trial they raced two laps of the circuit.
Asked if he had plans to climb the wall, Cancellara said it would be too hard.
"It's going to be very steep," he said. "But I have a lot of pictures. They're on my computer and I will enjoy it."
Cancellara, a two-time world champion in the individual time trial, surprised himself on Saturday when he won the bronze in the road race amid searing heat and suffocating humidity.
He said he decided to try hard to win the Olympics time trial after hearing Larsson, his teammate on the professional tour, name the Olympics time trial gold as his goal for this season.
(China Daily via Agencies August 14, 2008)