Irondan said:
King Boonen said:
spiritualride said:
King Boonen said:
Just bumping up the thread for the greatest GT rider of the current era. Hopefully he can add another this year and maybe a monument.
Other day I watched that 2014 TDF cobbles stage... incredible stuff. Does anyone know why everyone thought Nibali would perform poorly in that stage? Even at the end, the commentary and all the posters here were writing him off, saying he would lose minutes in the mountains to all the other GC contenders. But before the stage everyone thought he would perform badly on the cobbles... why?
People love to write off Nibali. He's won 4 GTs, top 3 in 4 others, won a Monument, top 3 in 2 others including MSR and a whole host of other results yet people still always say he's lucky, or he only won because someone else wasn't there.
For the cobbles I believe he came out and said he'd never ridden pavé before recon for the stage and as usual people wrote him off. What followed was one of the best performances you'll see from a GC rider in a very, very long time. Yes, Westra and Fuglsang were brilliant but 3rd on the stage, riding away from a group containing Cancellara and Sagan, sticking over 2 minutes on his rivals, chasing Boom on that last section. Epic stuff.
Not to mention the most epic 'come from behind' win in recent Grand Tour history in last years Giro.
Sure Kruijswijk had to crash out for it to work but that's all part of riding the race. You have to finish!
Nibs was 4:43 behind the leader in fourth place after stage 18 and won the race in stages 19 and 20. Unheard of in the modern peloton, and truly epic. Yet I read comment after comment of people trying to minimize that accomplishment.
We'll never really know this. Yes, it had a massive influence on the race, no way you can argue it didn't, but we'll never know what Kruijswijk would have done had he not crashed. All we know is that Nibali put everyone in front of him to the sword on those last crucial stages and ground them all into the dust. But yes, people still try to minimise this what he did.
Valv.Piti said:
LaFlorecita said:
Irondan said:
Nibs was 4:43 behind the leader in fourth place after stage 18 and won the race in stages 19 and 20. Unheard of in the modern peloton, and truly epic. Yet I read comment after comment of people trying to minimize that accomplishment.
Don't forget he was "only" 1:43 behind Chaves
still a very impressive feat
I think we all know what transpired. The impressive thing about Nibali was the desire and will to win, even tho it looked bleak, he basically eliminated Kruijswijk and then ate Chaves for breakfast.
Not really surprising tho that you and especially Dekker Tifosi still are trying to downplay the win
I've always said about Nibali that he fully understands that you need to finish a race to win it. By that I mean he seems to make sure he has the constitution to survive rough days and come back, not get knocked out of a race because he has a cold or stomach flu etc.. He also knows that while climbing is a huge part of what a GC is about (even more so than the days of Hinault, Merckx, Indurain etc.) you can win a GT by being a threat everywhere. His performance on the pavé was miraculous, he descending is mercurial (I think Kruijswijk said he crashed because he couldn't follow Nibali?) and on his day he can hang with and crack the best climbers in the world. He's a threat in every race he lines up in. He seems to have supreme self belief and self confidence no matter what the parcours or the situation. That's why I think he's the best GT rider of the current generation, he's certainly the one I'll talk about to my children if they get into bike racing.