Sastre loses Cancellera

Dutchman Michael Boogerd (Rabobank) and France"s Cyril Dessel (AG2R) will also leave the Tour of Spain before the mountainous 145-km journey from Almeria to Calar Alto in order to focus on their bids at Salzburg.

Even though Cancellara knew before the race he probably would not make it to Madrid, the Swiss victor of Paris-Roubaix regretted not being able to help Sastre to the last finish line.

"Long before the race started, we talked about me not going all the way to Madrid, as it's better for me to train on a time trial bike ahead of the World Championships," Cancellara told the team's official website.

"Still it was a difficult decision to make. First of all there's been a great atmosphere among us down here, secondly all that hard work up front has been good for my form and last but not least I really wanted to help Carlos [Sastre] as much as I possibly could."

The Swiss specialist said he would not have been able to aid Sastre's gold jersey campaign (the Spaniard trails Valverde by 1'25" in the general classification) in the race's final week of heavy climbing.

"The problem is that now there are so many mountains and I wouldn't be much help anyway," said Cancellara.

Sports director Kim Andersen said the team was happy with Cancellara's performance and supported his decision.

"Fabian has worked really hard, but like he says the terrain over the next few days is probably not his thing, so it's the best solution," Andersen told the CSC website.

Sastre grabbed the gold jersey after the race's opening stage when CSC won the team time trial, but at third in the general standings behind Valverde and Kazakh Andrey Kashechkin he has an uphill task in the race's final six stages.

"The chance is definitely still there for us," Andersen said. "There are still three mountain stages left and sometimes things turn upside down, when there's a tough stage just after a rest day, so we might have a shot already on Tuesday."