Any previous Tour de France winner will tell you that when it comes to defending your title one of the biggest battles is how you deal with pressure. The media commitments, the constant analysis and public doubts, eat away at your frayed reserves and all before a single pedal stroke in July.
However, it's a battle that Vincenzo Nibali is currently winning. The Italian hasn't won a single race this season, faced doubts over his team's future, felt Fabio Aru snapping at his heels and had to deal with the constant attention of his home media, but at a small gathering of journalists outside of Lyon during the Critérium du Dauphiné, Nibali appeared as relaxed as ever, telling those assembled that a second Tour win is not his only purpose.
"Now I have more experience and I know a lot more than I did back then but winning the Tour de France is not an obsession for me because obsession makes you tired," he says.
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This July he will line-up as the Tour's defending champion, and with Chris Froome, Alberto Contador and Nairo Quintana as challengers he faces the greatest test of his career so far. Last season he saw off Froome and Contador before the race reached the mountains, but in truth he looked capable of Tour success after an opening week that saw him take the race by the scruff of the neck.
"Every year is different and you can't compare," he says. "We came to the Dauphiné to get results and we've started to do that with the team time trial but this is just one step towards the Tour de France in July."
Nibali, it can be said, has forged his GC career as a rider who has made small incremental steps towards success. Whether it was his first early promise that was put on show at Liquigas or his breakthrough win at the Vuelta in 2010, he has matured at a natural pace. It's one of the reasons he heads towards this year's Tour with a level of assuredness many riders claim to have but whose behaviour and actions let them down.
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