Teams & Riders Vincenzo Nibali discussion thread

[StannisBaratheon]

He lost his composure, cracked under pressure. It happens to everyone after all, but not in the same form.
He didn't feel well and the outcome didn't look too good, after all these months in which he prepared only for the Tour.
He's human, not a robot or an alien [ no reference to Dawg ], that's why I am a fan of him.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

He lost his composure, cracked under pressure. It happens to everyone after all, but not in the same form.
He didn't feel well and the outcome didn't look too good, after all these months in which he prepared only for the Tour.
He's human, not a robot or an alien [ no reference to Dawg ], that's why I am a fan of him.

The one true king has spoken!

 

[Angliru]

Re: Re:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/nibali-and-aru-show-united-front-ahead-of-vuelta-a-espaa/

I found it quite an entertaining interview. It was interesting to see him make thinly veiled digs at Froome and Movistar, clearly there is little love between them.

I was impressed by Nibali's incredible calmness in that interview - he must be feeling very little pressure right now. Lo squalo è tranquillo. If he is in decent shape then he will be awesome to watch, attacking from 60km out again won't be out of the question.

He is also pretty happy about the relationship between him and Aru. I think Aru looks up to him, for sure. Like Nibali looked up to Basso, sort of way, but maybe Aru looks up to Nibali more. He is saying that he would be happy to work for Aru, which is more that can be said for Landa

I'm looking forward to see what he can bring us for the Vuelta.

One can be quite tranquilo in an interview. Nibali is known for being calm under fire so his demeanor leading up to the Vuelta shouldn't be surprising but I'd say he's under pressure to salvage his season. His primary focus was the Tour and he failed to even make the podium. A Tour stage win wasn't what he prepped his season for so he should be expected to be under pressure from Vino to make up for his disappointing Tour performance by delivering at the Vuelta. His all for the Tour approach that many tauted as the reason for his extraordinary form at the 2014 Tour and was defended by many prior to the Tour as him not changing what got him his Tour win has proven to have failed him in 2015. He should be motivated to make up for what has been, with the exception of his Italian road championship and Tour win, a less than stellar follow up to his 2014 Tour win season.

Care to elaborate on the bold part?

If anything, we saw in this years Tour that Nibali does not handle pressure well. He was the reigning Champion by winning what most people see as the weakest field in, I don't know, 20+ years? He came in to defend his title and show the audience that his win was not a result of Froome and Contador crashing out and to me, he seemed to have collapsed mentally already in Zeeland.

For the first time, he was under real pressure and he didn't cope well IMHO. At La Pierre Saint-Martin he didn't look exhausted, he looked like he didn't even want to try to push it since he knew he could not be in contention. Total resignation.

And I don't think it was a form issue as we saw that he was strong in the opening ITT, in the stage to Zeeland (dropping riders when chasing the front group at will before settling down) and later on in the mountains.

So I'd like to hear your arguments for Niabli being calm under fire because it's not the picture I have. And I am not Nibali hater, I just call it as I see it.

I viewed it more as he saw that his form was not equal to his 2014 Tour, that he was not on the same competitive level as those that ended on the podium, and chose to pursue battles that were winnable for him, that being a stage win and pursuing a Vuelta win. The Vuelta was likely already on his mind and he saved his energies for that goal further up the road. It was a calculation of what was winnable (a stage and the Vuelta) and what was not (the Tour and the Tour podium). If by someone faltering that was ahead of him in the gc gained him a spot on the podium then that would be gravy but since he obviously was not of the form to contend for the overall he set his sights further ahead in the season.

I believe regardless of what was written about his Tour win, he was at peace that it was well earned. I would argue that he did Froome one better and actually finished the Tour that followed his one Tour win. Froome never made it out of the 1st week and was at a 2 minute plus deficit at that point.

 

[Rollthedice]

The Dawg thinks he's The Badger now, winning Tour and Vuelta, he says he'll win no less than 7 TdF like good 'ol Armstrong. When some Sicilian guy attacks his Highness while he has some problems with his gears, brakes or whatever he makes sure to throw at that guy words that can't be printed. He is even compared to Merckx. But when Vincenzo, the Sicilian says that this Kenyan boy should show a little more modesty given his illustrious past of hanging on to motos and being a nobody until August 2011 when overnight he became Indurain and Pantani rolled in one, some here have a problem with this. Can't wait for the Vuelta.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Nibali discussion thread

Yeah I also don't like that nibali only focused on the tour this year but I think that he just had an extremely bad year. In a good year we wouldnt notice that his shape has only one peak. Take froome for example. Compared with his tour shape there were races where he was very bad, like romandie. However he was still stronger than most other riders.
In the same race nibali also wasnt in good shape but everyone noticed that because his bad shape immediately caused a big time gap.
Ps: I don't like it when people say that nibali hadn't won last years tour without the crashes but saying his performance was nothing special is nonsense. He was 8 minutes in front of everyone and the reason why people say it was a bad field is that 3 very good riders were missing, but the rest were pretty much the same riders like this year. This year his advantage to the 9th place (5th rider behind him) was half a minute smaller than last year advantage to the second place, so I think that definitely shows he was just far worse this year

 

[cantpedal]

Re:

The Dawg thinks he's The Badger now, winning Tour and Vuelta, he says he'll win no less than 7 TdF like good 'ol Armstrong. When some Sicilian guy attacks his Highness while he has some problems with his gears, brakes or whatever he makes sure to throw at that guy words that can't be printed. He is even compared to Merckx. But when Vincenzo, the Sicilian says that this Kenyan boy should show a little more modesty given his illustrious past of hanging on to motos and being a nobody until August 2011 when overnight he became Indurain and Pantani rolled in one, some here have a problem with this. Can't wait for the Vuelta.

Must be a tough year for him after winning the tour last year to arguably not being in the top 5 GT riders THIS year. as for his comments he's always had a bit of an edge to him. I enjoy his interviews even if I disagree with his views. He isn't afraid to say what he wants to.

 

[Taxus4a]

Re:

The Dawg thinks he's The Badger now, winning Tour and Vuelta, he says he'll win no less than 7 TdF like good 'ol Armstrong. When some Sicilian guy attacks his Highness while he has some problems with his gears, brakes or whatever he makes sure to throw at that guy words that can't be printed. He is even compared to Merckx. But when Vincenzo, the Sicilian says that this Kenyan boy should show a little more modesty given his illustrious past of hanging on to motos and being a nobody until August 2011 when overnight he became Indurain and Pantani rolled in one, some here have a problem with this. Can't wait for the Vuelta.

It looks like some worlds have done pain in some people

 

[Electress]

The thing with all these interviews is that they are edited. Who knows how Nibali segued into his comments about Froome et al.? I personally think there's no love lost, (and I can't blame him) but I don't think he's said anything either that surprising or that 'classless' either. But then, I have a much higher tolerance from people who aren't 'on message', even if it means they aren't always the most tactful and diplomatic.

I hope for good things from Astana at the Vuelta. If they are like the Giro, it'll be fun to watch without the investment in any one rider I had then.

 

[StannisBaratheon]

Re:

The Dawg thinks he's The Badger now, winning Tour and Vuelta, he says he'll win no less than 7 TdF like good 'ol Armstrong. When some Sicilian guy attacks his Highness while he has some problems with his gears, brakes or whatever he makes sure to throw at that guy words that can't be printed. He is even compared to Merckx. But when Vincenzo, the Sicilian says that this Kenyan boy should show a little more modesty given his illustrious past of hanging on to motos and being a nobody until August 2011 when overnight he became Indurain and Pantani rolled in one, some here have a problem with this. Can't wait for the Vuelta.

Exactly.
Nibali's usurpers will bend the knee or be destroyed in Spain.

 

[SafeBet]

Re:

Humour is nice. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the difference is, but in our native language we all know when someone is being light-hearted and humorous or mean spirited and a douchebag.

Based on what a native Italian speaker said, it seems to be the latter in this case. I think everyone would immediately agree with this if it wasn't Nibali saying it about Froome, who is the forum's favourite punching bag.

I'd need to hear the full interview to be sure about that, sometimes journalists have to cut sentences here and there. But yeah, I tend to agree with you.

And this is coming from someone who normally loves trash talking.

Of course this has nothing to do with Nibali being a champion or not.

 

[Carols]

Re: Nibali discussion thread

Well Nibs season from hell goes on. He looked strong getting back to the group and then was spent for the climb . Hopefully better days ahead.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

The Dawg thinks he's The Badger now, winning Tour and Vuelta, he says he'll win no less than 7 TdF like good 'ol Armstrong. When some Sicilian guy attacks his Highness while he has some problems with his gears, brakes or whatever he makes sure to throw at that guy words that can't be printed. He is even compared to Merckx. But when Vincenzo, the Sicilian says that this Kenyan boy should show a little more modesty given his illustrious past of hanging on to motos and being a nobody until August 2011 when overnight he became Indurain and Pantani rolled in one, some here have a problem with this. Can't wait for the Vuelta.

Looks like Nibali's the one grabbing onto motos now

 

[SeriousSam]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClwG4DD7sbY

Just embarrassing.

 

[BigMac]

Re:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClwG4DD7sbY

Just embarrassing.

Was that ruffian Vino's car? As for Nibali, disappointing. Was hoping that Worlds sticky ride was an isolated case.

 

[hrotha]

Is there any top rider with more documented cases of blatant motor pacing/sticky cars/taking shortcuts by plane? It's starting to be quite ridiculous..

 

[yespatterns]

I'm embarrassed to be a somewhat fan.

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClwG4DD7sbY

Just embarrassing.

Was that ruffian Vino's car? As for Nibali, disappointing. Was hoping that Worlds sticky ride was an isolated case.

Wow he should be penalized for that. When it was live I actually thought the car just left him and was scratching my head. They were pulling him . Very disappointing indeed.

 

[Arredondo]

*** Nibali. He's has to be DQ. Really horrible behaviour by him.

I was a fan of Nibbles back in the day. Now there's nothing left of that now.

 

[Billie]

read the rulebook please.

 

[yespatterns]

Re:

read the rulebook please.

More spam? We get it, you have a Nibali boner. Hooray for you.

 

[Walkman]

Re:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClwG4DD7sbY

Just embarrassing.

Wow, just wow!

Surly this has to be a penalty here?

Otherwise, every riders should grab a car as soon as they have a mechanical. Or just fake one and take a break as it's probably there you will end up unless this kind of behavior is dealt with.

 

[Gloin22]

Astana asked the jury to apply the maximal penalty: 10' but to keep Nibali in the race (via @AinaraHernando)

 

[BigMac]

They're taking it seriously. Planning to throw him out, Astana asking for 10 minutes instead.

edit: Gloin beat me to it.

 

[roundabout]

And the UCI check bikes for motors...

 

[yespatterns]

Whoomp whoomp.