‘I’ve always thought that the hardest thing is not winning, it’s doing it again,’ says Vincenzo Nibali. As he talks about the void left in Italian stage racing by his retirement, he inadvertently strikes upon a key part of what made him so special: ‘It’s hard because everyone knows you’re strong so you get marked. You think the same preparation might be right again, but it never is, so you have to come up with something new.
‘It’s like in Formula 1 – the engine is different every year and preparation changes too. If you do training that works one year and repeat it, it won’t go as well because your body remembers it. You have to change it to get the best out of it.’
Nibali was a master of this art of re-invention, getting more out of himself year in, year out. The result was four Grand Tour wins and three Monuments, with a podium finish in at least one of them every year from 2009 to 2019. He was a Boy’s Own cyclist with a knack for the spectacular, whether carving down descents with laser precision, racing from the front on the muddy cobbles of northern France or shining bright through the snow in the Dolomites.
There is no more repetition needed now. We meet three months into his retirement – if you can call it that, because Nibali has hardly stopped. A week after bowing out at Il Lombardia in October 2022, he jumped on a mountain bike and raced for fun – he has loved off-road since childhood, but it was practically forbidden during his career.
He has done a photo shoot on Mount Etna for Italian clothing brand Q36.5 and has been advising its new pro team as a consultant. Then there have been trips to South Africa, Singapore and Japan to ride or race criteriums. As we chat in a Spanish training camp hotel, he reflects that he hasn’t had a holiday.
‘My career ended, but I didn’t have a chance to go, “Damn, it’s over, what shall I do now?”’
Born attacker
Nibali started at the bottom, quite literally. You can’t get much further south in Italy than the island of Sicily, a loose nail off the country’s boot. Having started racing at the age of nine, he was already putting in the kilometres at a young age. His father Salvatore would drive north to Puglia and Campania on the mainland, long nights spent in the car and on the ferry.
A former amateur racer, Salvatore fettled with his son’s bikes and passed on his passion. The young Vincenzo had posters of Marco Pantani on his bedroom wall and devoured VHS tapes (his parents owned a rental store) of Francesco Moser.
There’s a wistful-sounding Sicilian proverb: cu nesci, arrinesci – who leaves, succeeds. To have a chance of emulating his heroes, Nibali had to spread his wings. At the age of 15 he moved to Tuscany, living in a house with teammates from his GS Mastromarco amateur team.
‘I was afraid because I was changing my school, my whole environment. You leave your friends behind. But the desire to test myself and race further afield was immense. It was stronger than the fear. Many times we see that fire in kids from small towns or from difficult backgrounds.’
As a kid from poorer Sicily, which is sometimes looked down upon by those from the more affluent north, Nibali already had a point to prove. His first goal was to pull on the blue jersey of the Italian national team. Attention from selectors was guaranteed thanks to his aggressive tactics.
‘I wasn’t a fast finisher, so to win I had to attack from far out. A lot of times, teammates would say, “Vincenzo, you messed up. If you’d made the move here, you would have won. You threw away an important race!”’ Nibali bangs the table with his fist. ‘That’s how you learn, eh.’
He still won a fair few races. An Italian junior champion, he turned pro in 2005 at the age of 20 with leading Italian squad Fassa Bortolo.
‘I was a raw kid who didn’t even know where to start. Many people advised me well,’ he says. ‘And I knew how to choose well too because, sometimes, making a different call can compromise everything and lead to mistakes.’
Nibali wanted to do the Giro d’Italia with Fassa Bortolo but was told to wait because he was too young. ‘Well, take me to the Tour then,’ was his cheeky riposte. No chance. He needed a few years to develop. ‘That was good because I went from small things, learning the ropes as a worker, before pursuing my own dreams,’ he reflects.
Does he think there’s enough patience in modern-day cycling? ‘No. Everyone wants everything right away. That can be good and bad. Logic follows that if an athlete is strong at 20, it’s possible to do ten years of a career very well, but then they’re already finished at 30. But stopping at 30 is not like stopping at 40. You’ve got all the time then to decide what happens next.’
The young Nibali’s turning point was not a particular performance, but an extension of his horizons. Heeding the advice of his friend, double world champion Paolo Bettini, he did two Grand Tours in a year – the 2008 Giro and Tour – to find his limits.
‘My motor went into overdrive. I was practically dead, I had to recover a lot from them, but that effort and tiredness stayed in my head. And when I did Grand Tours later, perhaps it was a factor that I’d come along physically.’
Step by step is a phrase Nibali uses several times to describe his development. By the time the 2010 Vuelta a España came around, he was 25 and ready to take on the mantle of absolute leadership, with a little help from a friend and Liquigas teammate.
‘I was sending daily text messages to Ivan Basso: “Ivan, what do you think of the race? I’m nervous.” It seemed a silly thing, but he said I should do what I’ve always done and wasn’t going wrong much.”’
Winning his first Grand Tour was a self-confidence game too.
Reach for the Sky
It could all have been so different. Nibali had an offer from Team Sky in 2009 ahead of their debut season, which he seriously considered. ‘I looked to see if I could get out of my contract, paying a penalty, but it wasn’t possible,’ he says. In the meantime, Team Sky went all in with Bradley Wiggins and the opportunity was gone.
‘Maybe it wouldn’t have gone so well because everything was very specified, detailed. I grew up in a more familial and traditional cycling,’ he says.
He became a thorn in Sky’s side instead, beating Rigoberto Urán to take his first Giro d’Italia win in 2013. The ultimate prize followed a year later at the Tour de France. He was in the ascendancy from day two, winning with a perfectly timed solo move into Sheffield. Then there was the stage over the cobblestones into Arenberg, teaming up with Jakob Fuglsang to put two minutes into his rivals.
‘I was having fun,’ he says, laughing. ‘I didn’t think I’d have problems because since my childhood I’ve been confident on gravel and mud on my mountain bike. Perhaps it’s a shame that I didn’t race Paris-Roubaix, even to just try it. But it’s not a big regret. I know it’s super-hard.’
While Alberto Contador and Chris Froome abandoned, affected by crashes, Nibali stretched his legs – and lead – winning three mountain stages. His winning margin of 7min 37sec over Jean-Christophe Péraud is the race’s biggest of the 21st century.
As outgoing as he could be on the bike, Nibali is a calm introvert off it. Winning the Tour flung him into the spotlight. ‘I didn’t realise what I’d achieved. Everyone wanted Vincenzo, there were a ton of requests and it was hard to handle. It took some time to digest it. I was recognised pretty much wherever I went.’
When talk turns to his rivals, it’s another reminder of his longevity: ‘I didn’t have a single one in my career. There was Fränk and Andy Schleck, Riccò, Lance, Cadel Evans…’ he begins. His two biggest foes were Contador and Froome.
‘Nothing against Froome, but I prefer Alberto a lot more, because Alberto could think and race outside the box. He was more similar to me. Froome is more schematic.’
Together, the trio are in an elite group who have won all three Grand Tours, alongside Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault. Some fantasy dinner party, that.
Nibali saved his fourth and most dramatic Grand Tour win till last. At the 2016 Giro d’Italia, Dutch rider Steven Kruijswijk appeared to be cruising to victory until he crashed into a snowbank 48 hours from the finish. Nibali went on the warpath to reverse a four-minute deficit.
‘My two Giro wins were different. I’d dreamed about the first one [in 2013] since I was a kid. The second was something conquered more with the team. It’s thanks to them and their work, because it seemed we had lost it all.’
Esteban Chaves was unseated from the maglia rosa on the final mountain stage. Nibali had a habit of saving his best till last. As you’d expect, given his nickname, ‘the Shark’ was merciless when he smelled blood.
‘I’ve always been an attacker, sometimes making reckless moves,’ he says, smiling. ‘However, in my later years, I tried to consider where to go for it a lot more.’
His final big win, Milan-San Remo in 2018, encapsulated the very best of Nibali: strength, audacity, creativity, perfect positioning and deft bike handling. He made two stinging accelerations up the Poggio and kept most of his 11-second lead down it. He held off the sprinters by mere metres. Nibali recalls that he held 420 watts for more than 20 minutes.
Descending: he’s got it down
There are few more striking sights in cycling than Nibali in full flight on a descent. When Cyclist suggests he is one of the sport’s best at going downhill, Nibali reacts modestly: ‘Among the climbers, I consider myself a good descender. However, there are a lot in the bunch. Perhaps they aren’t seen and aren’t considered. A few times, I’ve wound up in the gruppetto and to make it inside the time limit, we’ve done descents all-out. Peter Sagan, for example, knows how to handle a bike adeptly.
‘The key to a good descent is having the right balance of weight to get more grip from the tyres. Not too far forwards or backwards, then knowing how to shift it for a corner,’ he says. ‘If you’re afraid and you stiffen up, the bike has less grip and might go straight rather than turn if you brake hard.’
Even after 18 years as a pro, his passion for his sport is clear as he speaks fast, his hands gesturing to reinforce his technical points. Nibali has never been one for snappy soundbites or charm offensives, but who needs that when he raced with such flair?
Very few modern champions have been so good for so long. Even at the age of 37 in 2022, he finished fourth at the Giro. It’s now seven years since his and Italy’s last triumph there, the longest drought in the nation’s history.
‘I retired, I gave so much to cycling and I’m happy with that. There are a lot of promising young Italian riders, but as far as the big stage races go, there’s nothing,’ he says. ‘We need to wait; maybe a few will come along. We’re going through a bit of a difficult patch.’
He mentions talents such as Classics rider Davide Ballerini (Soudal-QuickStep), 2022 Giro d’Italia stage winner Stefano Oldani of Alpecin-Deceuninck, and Tour of Flanders winner Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost). As Nibali has already established, it’s all about turning glimpses of class into consistency: repetition.
On that front, there won’t be any quite like Nibali again, bridging the gap between a seemingly bygone heroism and the calculating modern age; between instinct, intelligence and science; between Monuments, Grand Tours and every race in between, regardless of the road surface.
And Nibali, who has made a life out of challenging himself, won’t stand still. He is preoccupied with helping to take the new Q36.5 team into the WorldTour. He is learning English, helped by his nine-year-old daughter treating the language app Duolingo as a game. He is due to take on the Cape Epic mountain bike race in South Africa with his former teammate Ivan Santaromita. Just for fun, he says.
A likely story. You can teach an older shark new tricks, but it’s fun to remember the classy ones from the past that made him such a rare beast, too.
Italian icon
The life and climbs of Vincenzo Nibali
2006: Joins Liquigas in his second year as a pro and wins his first races, a stage of Settimana Coppi e Bartali and the GP Plouay.
2009: Finishes sixth on his Tour de France debut.
2010: Vuelta a España victory is the pick of the lot. Wins his first Giro stage, soloing away down Monte Grappa on the way to third overall.
2012: Takes a second Tirreno-Adriatico title; gets pipped by Maxim Iglinskiy to Liège-Bastogne-Liège; finishes third at the Tour de France.
2013: Joins Astana. Caps Giro win by taking victory in the falling snow on Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Chris Horner pips him to Vuelta victory by 37 seconds.
2014: A dominant Tour de France with four stage wins and the biggest winning margin of the 21st century; wins Italian road race title.
2015: Takes a second Italian road race title and a Tour de France stage on the way to fourth; wins Il Lombardia.
2016: Has an unlikely come-from-behind Giro d’Italia triumph. Crashes downhill when fighting for a medal at the 2016 Olympic road race.
2017: Signs for Bahrain-Merida. Takes his seventh and final Giro stage on the way to third place. Finishes second at the Vuelta and wins Il Lombardia.
2018: Wins Milan-San Remo in swashbuckling fashion. Thibaut Pinot bests him in Il Lombardia, while he quits the Tour after crashing.
2019: Underestimates Richard Carapaz and finishes as Giro runner-up. Takes an impressive Tour stage win on the penultimate day.
2021: Takes victory in his backyard at the Tour of Sicily, the 52nd and final win of his career.
Nibali on…
…his nickname
‘It came from a good friend in Sicily when I did the Under-23 World Championships in Verona. He was at the race with this big banner saying “The Shark of the Messina Strait”. [News channel] RAI did a piece on TV with the fans and captured it. Ever since then, it’s stuck. I like it.’
…learning English
‘That period with Trek-Segafredo was important for me; it’s a very international team where I learned a lot. The first year, where I was speaking it a bit in interviews was pretty knackering. I’m doing Duolingo – my daughter sometimes asks for my phone to use it.’
…his least favourite climbs
‘Alpe di Pampeago and the Marmolada. They’re a bit similar – wide, straight roads where there are only hairpins in the last part. You can’t take any reference point and your rhythm of pedalling at the start goes most of the way through.’
• This article originally appeared in issue 115 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribe
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