Three years after he battled through a near blizzard on the Tre Cime di Lavaredo to clinch his hold on the Giro d’Italia’s overall lead, Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) is back in his home race again - and, as in 2013, the Sicilian starts the 2016 Giro d’Italia as top favourite.
In 2013, Nibali’s rivals included Bradley Wiggins, as the then Sky rider began his ill-fated bid to take become Britain’s first ever winner of Giro d’Italia, Rigoberto Urán - back again in the Giro this year and runner-up in 2013 - and Cadel Evans, third overall in 2013 and now retired. Fourth on GC was Michele Scarponi, now a team-mate and sitting on Nibali’s left as he spoke at the Giro’s pre-race press conference on Thursday evening and fifth Carlos Alberto Betancur, also back in the Giro but now racing in Movistar as a domestique de luxe for Spanish contender Alejandro Valverde.
In the meantime, Nibali, too, has moved on, and how. He won the Tour de France in 2014, has twice been national champion and took a memorable lone win in the Tour of Lombardy last October. He returns to the Giro d’Italia three years older but also as a firmly established member of cycling’s current quarter of leading Grand Tour racers, together with Chris Froome (Sky); Alberto Contador (Tinkoff) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar).
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As the only member of that 'big four' at this Giro, Nibali’s appearance in the Apeldoorn press centre was keenly awaited, for all it was the last of the Thursday press conferences of a day-long series. Indeed, even as Sky’s team leaders were delivering their last answers to the television crews, a small knot of the Giro's photographers were already congregating at the back of the room, taking pictures of the 2016 Giro’s top favourite as he sat quietly in a low-slung armchair next to team-mate Scarponi waiting for his turn to speak.
When he finally moved onto the press conference top table, the Italian media instantly made sure that Nibali’s relatively poor showing in the traditional warm-up race, the Giro di Trentino, where he finished 21st overall before making an equally low-key appearance in Liege-Bastogne-Liege, was the first subject up for dissection. ‘Was Vincenzo worried?’ one Italian reporter asked.
Nibali gave a somewhat non-committal answer, arguing that “I wasn’t overly happy with how it went but I am pretty calm and confident and ready for the Giro. Immediately before Trentino I had previously trained very hard, so it was almost like I was recovering from that spell of training as I headed towards Liege-Bastogne-Liege. I ‘m building towards this Giro and the biggest stages, the key stages, will show us what is what.”
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