Teams & Riders Vincenzo Nibali discussion thread

[Rollthedice]

Re:

He chosed the wrong doll, i can see four stronger contender than Bernal.

Me too but the Giro hasn't even started.

 

[Robert5091]

Re:

On a side note the voodoo is strong. If I were Tom, Yates or Rogla I'd be very careful these days.

:lol: I thought the same thing too.

 

[SafeBet]

Re:

He chosed the wrong doll, i can see four stronger contender than Bernal.

Bernal is the wrong doll for more than one reason. He was the most similar contender to Nibali in this Giro, someone who would benefit from long and hard stages, altitude and steady pace. Now the race dynamics will likely change, and I'm not necessarily expecting the hardest stages to be so selective.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re: Re:

He chosed the wrong doll, i can see four stronger contender than Bernal.

Bernal is the wrong doll for more than one reason. He was the most similar contender to Nibali in this Giro, someone who would benefit from long and hard stages, altitude and steady pace. Now the race dynamics will likely change, and I'm not necessarily expecting the hardest stages to be so selective.

There's always Landani.

 

[Ivan_Basso_77]

Re: Re:

He chosed the wrong doll, i can see four stronger contender than Bernal.

Bernal is the wrong doll for more than one reason. He was the most similar contender to Nibali in this Giro, someone who would benefit from long and hard stages, altitude and steady pace. Now the race dynamics will likely change, and I'm not necessarily expecting the hardest stages to be so selective.

There's always Landani.

Yates and especially MAL will also need the race to be harder, since they will lose time to Dumoulin and Roglic in the time trials. But I really believe Nibbles will come up with something great.

 

[Gigs_98]

Both Roglic and dumoulin don't have a super team either. I don't think he needed sky to derail them. So in terms of, how does this influence Nibali's chance to win I'd say his chances just got clearly better.

 

[Red Rick]

At this point Nibali's best climbing in a GT is pretty much an unknown. He'll need to be better than 2016/2017 but if he has it he will put a decent chunk of time into the likes of Yates, MAL and *** in the ITTs, limit his losses better than in 2017 and he'll have the form for madness in the mountains.

 

[Rollthedice]

It is of course sad for Bernal, he is prone to crashing a lot but it's not improving very much Nibali's chances. I think he will be ready to fight for the win with whoever is in the race and Froome is not starting. In my opinion his main rivals are Dumoulin and Yates, both GT winners and both taking a wise approach to their main goal of the season. I am not forgetting Roglic who most likely will have anywhere between 1' and 1'30" advantage until the mountains kick in and MAL who can climb very well and I guess he'll be supported by a Vino motivated team but I'm not sure the first can withstand the presumed mayhem in the last week and the second can recuperate the ITT loses.

 

[Red Rick]

MAL I just don't see happening. Not because he loses days in the TTs, but because he's not the climber to make up huge time at any stage.

 

[topcat]

Nibali versus Tom. The rest will fight for scraps.

 

[Son of Amsterhammer]

Re:

Nibali versus Tom. The rest will fight for scraps.

Zero percent chance of this, with Rog and Yates there.

 

[Summoned]

Have to admit, I am seeing fourth as best case scenario for Nibali. He seems confident, and not being able to put time into Sivakov and Hart at the Tour of the Alps does not seem to have had any impact on his confidence, but I think the top three contenders for the Giro (Dumoulin, Roglic, and Yates) have more things going for them than Nibali. Would love to be proved wrong, and Nibali does bring more uncertainty to pretty much any race he targets than any other serious contender, so that is a consideration. Sometimes, though, that uncertainty is not to Nibali’s advantage.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

Have to admit, I am seeing fourth as best case scenario for Nibali. He seems confident, and not being able to put time into Sivakov and Hart at the Tour of the Alps does not seem to have had any impact on his confidence, but I think the top three contenders for the Giro (Dumoulin, Roglic, and Yates) have more things going for them than Nibali. Would love to be proved wrong, and Nibali does bring more uncertainty to pretty much any race he targets than any other serious contender, so that is a consideration. Sometimes, though, that uncertainty is not to Nibali’s advantage.

There is no uncertainty in any GT he is targeting, 10 podiums says it all really. But this is not about his résumé, it's rather about how strong he is right now.

It's easy for those who don't follow closely how Nibali operates to misjudge his chances in major races which he targets. His confidence is not based on dropping Sivakov, his form with about a month before the Giro is the best since ages, his LBL was in line with him hitting a peak in Italy later. I don't think he'll lose more than 10 sec. to the first at Madonna di San Luca. Most likely he'll never hit the 2014 form but I think he will not be that far off.

As far as I remember he was the main favorite only once and at some point in that race people were suggesting he should abandon for his own sake. Needless to say, he is the perennial underdog winning against all odds. I can't see a reason why this shouldn't happen again.

 

[Red Rick]

I had a dream that Nibali payed for my shawarma at a fast food joint.

Obviously means Nibali will have something to celebrate after this Giro.

 

[Laplaz]

Re: Re:

Have to admit, I am seeing fourth as best case scenario for Nibali. He seems confident, and not being able to put time into Sivakov and Hart at the Tour of the Alps does not seem to have had any impact on his confidence, but I think the top three contenders for the Giro (Dumoulin, Roglic, and Yates) have more things going for them than Nibali. Would love to be proved wrong, and Nibali does bring more uncertainty to pretty much any race he targets than any other serious contender, so that is a consideration. Sometimes, though, that uncertainty is not to Nibali’s advantage.

There is no uncertainty in any GT he is targeting, 10 podiums says it all really. But this is not about his résumé, it's rather about how strong he is right now.

It's easy for those who don't follow closely how Nibali operates to misjudge his chances in major races which he targets. His confidence is not based on dropping Sivakov, his form with about a month before the Giro is the best since ages, his LBL was in line with him hitting a peak in Italy later. I don't think he'll lose more than 10 sec. to the first at Madonna di San Luca. Most likely he'll never hit the 2014 form but I think he will not be that far off.

As far as I remember he was the main favorite only once and at some point in that race people were suggesting he should abandon for his own sake. Needless to say, he is the perennial underdog winning against all odds. I can't see a reason why this shouldn't happen again.

If he loses less than 10 seconds to Roglic I would be very happy. But I guess it will be around 20...

 

[Gigs_98]

I don't know, maybe I'm completely overrating Nibali but I have the feeling he gets underrated. The giro field this year is great (not as great as it looked two days ago but still great) because 3 of the right now probably 5 highest rated gc riders are all targeting this race but that doesn't make Yates, Dumoulin and Roglic what Contador, Froome and Nibali were in 2014.

Roglic hasn't even been on the podium of a grand tour, yet people are hyping him up like a multiple tdf winner. Could we please not forget the last time Nibali rode a gt in peak shape on the last stage he finished, despite crashing, he was dragging that very Primoz Roglic up Alpe d'Huez. Could we please not forget that happened after Nibali looked way worse in his preperation races than this year. Could we please not forget he was in front of Roglic in the gc before abandoning? And how on earth are people looking at Nibali having his best preperation in years and use it as an argument against him. It would be more logical to say Nibali is back to his 2014 level than anything else looking at his tour of the alps. I genuinely think you could make the argument Nibali should be a bigger favorite than Roglic yet apparently Roglic is a bigger favorite by a countrymile. Just look at some of the odds the bookies give the two.

Then there is Yates who was obviously insanely good for most of the giro last year...before completely collapsing. Of course he had his Vuelta win later that season but was that Vuelta supposed to be the prove he is unbeatable for someone like Nibali? Like, I love Enric Mas, but Enric Mas could have been seriously dangerous for Yates without his off day at La Covatilla, so is Mas now supposedly on a completely different level than Nibali? Btw, it's also worth mentioning that the vuelta last year suited yates perfectly while this giro in my opinion doesn't (don't know how well he will cope with the really long and tough mountain stages). If Yates gets his giro legs from last year for 21 stages this time, I guess he'll be the man to beat, but I can't be the only one who thinks there is a good chance he'll only be in his vuelta shape and if that's the case, on this route, I'd put my money on Nibali.

Dumoulin imo has to be the favorite for this race because he has proven to be an elite gc rider for a few times now. I expect him to completely smash everyone in the San Marino TT and then it's gonna be very hard to drop him. That said, to return to the comparison with Froome or Contador in their best years. Dumoulin might be a great rider but he is not an Indurain, or and Armstrong. Even in his best races there have always been moments where Dumoulin showed weaknesses. He got consistently dropped by Yates in the giro last year, (in the purest climbing battle of the race last season, on the Zoncolan, he actually only got 5th) a year earlier he actually only finished 40 seconds in front of Nibali and got dropped by him (among others) on both of the last two mountain stages. As I said, my favorite for the race, but I don't sense the invincebility surrounding him like it does with the absolute best of the best. I absolutely think there will be stages where Nibali will be able to drop Dumoulin.

I'm not trying to argue Nibali is the favorite to win here, but I think he is up there with the other three, maybe in fourth, but a close fourth. Maybe one could argue he has a lower ceiling than the other 3 becuase he hasn't been spectacular in gt mountain stages since 2014, but then I'd argue none of the other three have a ceiling as high as 2014 Nibali (although tbf we don't actually know that about Roglic yet, I just don't expect it) and Nibali hasn't looked this promising in his last preperation race since that year. Also Nibali is most likely to go all in for the win, which might hurt his podium chances, but after all it's the win I am writing about.

 

[Climbing]

I don't think Nibali minds at all being considered the underdog.
What I don't understand is how can people still underestimate him after all he has won during his career.

For sure nobody is eternal, but I still don't see Nibali on the decline at all.

All that said I still pick Dumo as the favorite, but not even remotely with an unbeatable aura as Gigs says.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Re:

I had a dream that Nibali payed for my shawarma at a fast food joint.

Obviously means Nibali will have something to celebrate after this Giro.

What's the difference between a Gyro and a shawarma?
https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/israeli-kitchen/gyro-vs-shawarma

an alternative
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_fin_soup

 

[Rollthedice]

Good points gigs. Though I'd argue that he wasn't spectacular since 2014, not consistently but La Toussuire 2015, Risoul 2016, Lombardia 2017 were pretty nice. Unfortunately last year's Tour and season ended as it did and I'm sure that's one of the reasons he's underestimated.

 

[Red Rick]

Might see it as proof that his very best days are more destructive than those of the rest of the field.

 

[Rollthedice]

If he loses less than 10 seconds to Roglic I would be very happy. But I guess it will be around 20...

I like to remember the good old days, Mori-Polsa, Giro 2013.

 

[Red Rick]

I wonder more how losses are distributed.

Is there an intermediate time check before the hill?

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

I wonder more how losses are distributed.

Is there an intermediate time check before the hill?

Intemedio Split time:
km 5.9 - via di San Luca

 

[Rollthedice]

Vincenzo Nibali, Antonio Nibali, Domenico Pozzovivo, Damiano Caruso, Andrea Garosio, Grega Bole, Kristijan Koren and Valerio Agnoli.

Could have been better, at least they will speak the same language.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I could see Nibz easily losing 30 seconds to Rogla in this kind of shape, but also around 10-15. A bit hard to tell with such a TT.