Gladiator spirit: Fabian ‘Spartacus’ Cancellara reclaims cycling time-trial gold

Fabian Cancellara ensured his retirement at the end of the year would be golden by reclaiming the Olympic cycling time-trial title in Rio on Wednesday.

The Beijing 2008 champion, who could finish only seventh in London four years ago after being affected by a crash in the road race, was totally dominant as he beat Tom Dumoulin into second with Tour de France champion Chris Froome back in third.

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Known in the professional cycling peloton as Spartacus because of his gladiator, Cancellara was long considered the best time-trialist in the world as he won four world titles.

In recent years the 35-year-old had been surpassed by German Tony Martin, who could finish only 12th, London champion Bradley Wiggins and even Dumoulin.

But he proved he still had one big performance left in him by storming to gold along the 54.5km route in a time of 1hr 12min 15.42sec, to beat Dumoulin by 47sec, with Froome, who also won bronze in London, more than a minute behind.