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Teams & Riders Vincenzo Nibali discussion thread

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Gasparotto, now DS for Bora says:

"The Shark is doing well and becoming dangerous because he has gained morale. I know him well. Yates they let him go because he is off the GC, Vincenzo on the other hand is not that far away and everyone is afraid of Nibali in the third week. I knew on the Blockhaus he would gain morale (that days Nibali placed 8th at 34" from Hindley, ed.), I know what's in his head."

Little fish?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Carols
Didn't have time for the forum yesterday, watching when working. Which is good because I would have screamed some embarassing stuffs.
After Etna, even after Blockhaus improvement, I didn't expect this. And this Nibali makes me miss better days a little less.
But with ecstasy always comes worry, hopefully it's not just because it's his kind of stage.
Give us a sharky Giro, Vincenzo! One that we will keep talking about for many many forum years
 
Little fish?
Plastic-fish-Bags.jpg

Is this what goes into the borraccia ?
(bagged)
 
Didn't have time for the forum yesterday, watching when working. Which is good because I would have screamed some embarassing stuffs.
After Etna, even after Blockhaus improvement, I didn't expect this. And this Nibali makes me miss better days a little less.
But with ecstasy always comes worry, hopefully it's not just because it's his kind of stage.
Give us a sharky Giro, Vincenzo! One that we will keep talking about for many many forum years

It wasn't his kind of stage. Short, explosive, 2 km double digit ramps, hot and him getting 38. This makes it even more remarkable.
 
I'm not so sure. It was very hard all throughout, with no blistering W/kg events.

Though Nibali does a better 6 minute W/kg effort after a super hard race than when really fresh.

Certainly he is capable of handling these types of stages very well but this only happens when he is in great shape. In a just "good" form he could've shared the fate of Landa (without any helper so worse outcome), a somewhat similar type of climber. And let's not forget his age, he was very agile on the last steep ramp, only junior Hindley looked better.
 
He's in great shape, there is no question about it.
The only doubt I have is consistency. He looked weak on Etna, could the rest day be the problem? If so, Tuesday will be painful.

Is it inconsistency? He didn't have legs on Etna, had better legs on Blockhaus, had great legs yesterday.

He might collapse because he's old but so far it has been a classic growing into the race scenario.
 
He's in great shape, there is no question about it.
The only doubt I have is consistency. He looked weak on Etna, could the rest day be the problem? If so, Tuesday will be painful.

I don't think it was the rest day, he came to the Giro with a less than ideal prep, the ITT was an exception (although he did a rather weak uphill section). Liege gave him some disturbing signals, he wasn't sure what he could do in the Giro, Etna was a consequence. What we saw after, was him riding gradually into form. This doesn't mean he can't collapse one day, last year his peak (whatever high it was) was very short lived and it happened during the Tour of Sicily and already went down in Lombardia.

We need to enjoy the moment and prepare for a heartbreaking fight with Pozzo for a place on the podium.
 
I don't think it was the rest day, he came to the Giro with a less than ideal prep, the ITT was an exception (although he did a rather weak uphill section). Liege gave him some disturbing signals, he wasn't sure what he could do in the Giro, Etna was a consequence. What we saw after, was him riding gradually into form. This doesn't mean he can't collapse one day, last year his peak (whatever high it was) was very short lived and it happened during the Tour of Sicily and already went down in Lombardia.

We need to enjoy the moment and prepare for a heartbreaking fight with Pozzo for a place on the podium.
Lombardia wasn't bad. It's just a monument field instead of a 2.1 field. And he did the patented Nibali blow up after attacking and then trying to follow Pog
 
While nobody exactly held back, I feel that he dug particularly deep yesterday in the attempt to win the stage. He could use an easier day today on top of resting on Monday, I think (which is likely to happen unless Bora gets ideas).

In general there's always the sword of Damocles of total collapse pending over his(our) head(s). Unfortunately I can't bring myself to trust that this is the Squalo of old who gets gud when the others feel the pain, and not just old Vincenzo on a random pair of decent legs combined with a sheer will of gifting his fans a final win.
 
"After yesterday's stage I was fine, but the climb to get here to Cogne was very fast. Besides, we had the wind at our backs, so in the peloton it was fine. Ineos and Bora set a good pace, it was useless to make an attack. In the end it was a strange stage."

"I've noticed that compared to the first week I'm better. Unfortunately, my season got off to a late start because of Covid and evidently I arrived a little late in condition at the start of this Giro."

"I want to try to leave my mark. I'm still in the standings, though, and yesterday Hindley never left me any room. That's why it's not easy."
 

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