LaFlorecita said:Do you mean as many as Contador has left, or do you expect Nibali to win 4 more GTs? Just wondering
The official ones not the ones shown with the fingers of two hands.
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LaFlorecita said:Do you mean as many as Contador has left, or do you expect Nibali to win 4 more GTs? Just wondering
LaFlorecita said:Why wouldn't he?
Vino attacks everyone said:One can only smile and be happy after todays stage. I said before the race that Aru was giving him his angel wings for July. People laughed at us Nibali supporters from Oman until the cobbled stage. Now who is laughing?!?!
Rollthedice said:The official ones not the ones shown with the fingers of two hands.
movingtarget said:This is almost like watching the 2013 Giro all over again without the snow of course. Nibali has no trouble reacting to attacks and seems to have no trouble attacking and making the gap. I expect him to put a few more minutes into the field and if he does lose time in the TT, it will be to Tony Martin, possibly Costa or TJVG but he will put time into Bardet, Pinot, Valverde etc. No wonder people have enjoyed the Vuelta so much in the past few years as the last three Tours and last two Giros were decided a long way from the finish. The way Nibali is riding I am convinced he would have been good enough to battle it out with Froome and Contador. He has improved a lot since the 2012 Tour and rarely has a bad day. Just a complete rider now like Froome and Contador.
movingtarget said:This is almost like watching the 2013 Giro all over again without the snow of course. Nibali has no trouble reacting to attacks and seems to have no trouble attacking and making the gap. I expect him to put a few more minutes into the field and if he does lose time in the TT, it will be to Tony Martin, possibly Costa or TJVG but he will put time into Bardet, Pinot, Valverde etc. No wonder people have enjoyed the Vuelta so much in the past few years as the last three Tours and last two Giros were decided a long way from the finish. The way Nibali is riding I am convinced he would have been good enough to battle it out with Froome and Contador. He has improved a lot since the 2012 Tour and rarely has a bad day. Just a complete rider now like Froome and Contador.
pigoonse said:Almost entirely agree with your post, movingtarget - especially agree with the part I bolded. It would have been quite a battle had Contador and Froome been able to stay in the race, however, from what we have seen, I believe Nibali would have beat Froome. Also think he would have come close to beating Contador - we will never know for sure. As it turns out, Contador had an unfortunate moment on stage 10 and his Tour was done; Froome could not handle the conditions on stage 5. This tour is not over, there is still ample opportunity for bad luck to strike, but I predict Nibali's great bike handling, and alert, confident performance continues to the top step in Paris.
Sciocco said:I think it really just comes down to riding conservatively, that is all he needs to do to guarantee victory. If he rides carefully the only thing that could stop him is bad luck since he is significantly better than his opponents so far.
But Nibali is a showman, he likes to attack, to entertain, and I expect he will continue to do so. I think he might toss out attacking on the the stage 16(?) downhill, but possibly a small attack tomorrow and I bet he'll go for Hautacam(sp?).
Assuming Nibali wins the Tour, I wonder what next year holds. Will he defend his TdF? Or will he return to the Giro? My dream, Nibali versus Contador versus Quintana at the Giro. Sadly, it is extremely unlikely.
rhubroma said:Yea, but he would have been dropped by them in the mountains in my opinion. Against a top form Froome or AC, the Italian simply doesn't have the fire power to stay with them. As good as he is right now, just that little bit of extra puntch we saw by AC before the catastrophe, means the Spaniard would have won this Tour by at least 2 minutes on Nibali and 8-9 on all the rest. Considering this was an AC in epic form.
rhubroma said:Yea, but he would have been dropped by them in the mountains in my opinion. Against a top form Froome or AC, the Italian simply doesn't have the fire power to stay with them. As good as he is right now, just that little bit of extra puntch we saw by AC before the catastrophe, means the Spaniard would have won this Tour by at least 2 minutes on Nibali and 8-9 on all the rest. Considering this was an AC in epic form.
Sciocco said:I think it really just comes down to riding conservatively, that is all he needs to do to guarantee victory. If he rides carefully the only thing that could stop him is bad luck since he is significantly better than his opponents so far.
But Nibali is a showman, he likes to attack, to entertain, and I expect he will continue to do so. I think he might toss out attacking on the the stage 16(?) downhill, but possibly a small attack tomorrow and I bet he'll go for Hautacam(sp?).
Assuming Nibali wins the Tour, I wonder what next year holds. Will he defend his TdF? Or will he return to the Giro? My dream, Nibali versus Contador versus Quintana at the Giro. Sadly, it is extremely unlikely.
warmfuzzies said:Nibali is poised to become 1 of 5 Grand Tour Triple Crown winners. While he might be closer to Gimondi in terms of overall cycling legend than Merckx/Hinault/Anquetil, the man deserves the respect his potential achievement deserves. In my opinion, this respect includes a cessation of comments to the effect that 'Contador would have beaten him . . . if he hadn't crashed out when he was down 2:30 to Nibali and was passing competitors on the downhill in the rain.'
pigoonse said:Not to get my hopes up too high, but when I first looked at stage 16's profile, I thought about how great a Nibali stage it could be, thinking he would be behind Contador by a bit and he could get some seconds on that descent. But at this point, it is my fingers that are crossed that everyone makes it safely to the finish in good shape.
Pippo_San said:Froome and Contador up until now have been beaten fair and square.
DEAL
WITH
IT.
Have they been DSQ? No
Were they caught in clinic things? No
Did someone make them crash? No FFS
DEAL
WITH
IT.
Enough is enough. If they can't handle certain conditions, blame on them. That's pro cycling for you.
maxmartin said:Epic my as*, from a hill top three second difference (not to mention the gear issue), you can conclude Spaniard would won the Tour at least 2 min, and 8-9 on all other. Wow, just wow. What happens if Nibali put 10 mins into the rest of the field at the end of the Tour, according to your master logical calculation, VN actually is ahead of AC by one min. LMAO. Why don't you just stop at stage 8 and gave the yellow jersey to AC already (of course in your head). The fact is we don't really know what kind of form AC is in, so u can claim whatever you want to claim and prove something unprovable. And the fact remains Nibali is the one on his way to collect the yellow jersey in the Paris. Reality must be harsh for someone to deal with.
movingtarget said:I don't think that two seconds lost by Nibali on the top of a hill indicates anything. AC was in great form but there had to be some doubts about Froome. Contador still had to make up over two minutes. I'm not saying that Nibali definitely would have won, I just don't think Contador would have ridden away with it. I think it would have been a battle and it's too bad the three way battle that everyone wanted to see never happened.
rhubroma said:I think it was more signifant then you give it credit, simply because I think the Italian was at his limit. Thus three seconds, yes, isn't much, but it gave us an inkling as to what might have played out on the much longer and difficult climbs.
If Contador was indeed in the best form of his life, then Nibali would have been scrambling to hold the Spaniard's wheel. The only thing that I think can't be determined, is whether or not Contador would have actually been able to sustain the gaps. For Nibali is certainly at a very good level, but nobody currently in the race has been able to put him under real pressure. Thus we can't also know how he would have reacted under such circumstances.
"I think Nibali will win the Tour, he's my favourite. If he goes as well as he did when he won the Giro last year, if he's got the same condition, I think he's unbeatable."