Vincenzo Nibali has hit back at his critics after he was expelled from the Vuelta a España for taking a long tow from a team car, suggesting he has been unfairly criticised, perhaps because of animosity towards his Astana team. He hints that the decision to expel him from the Vuelta may have come from the UCI, who tried to take away the team’s WorldTour licence at the start of the season after a series of doping cases and allegations of poor management.
Nibali also talked about the tension within the Kazakhstani team, revealing that he does not have a get-out clause in his contract with the team for 2016 and hopes he will be allowed to rebuild the group of riders around him, suggesting the results will follow as a consequence.
“I don’t like being treated like a monster because I’m not,” Nibali said in the exclusive interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport.
ADVERTISEMENT
“A lot of bad things have been said about me. I don’t know if it's because of jealousy or something… On the internet someone has even described what I did as one of the five worst things ever seen in cycling. Someone even wrote that I held onto a car at the Florence world championships after my crash. But that’s rubbish and there’s no proof of that.”
Nibali feels he has become an easy target for criticism.
“I’ve been hit on as if I’ve killed someone. That’s not the case. I made a mistake. That’s all,” he argued.
“I’ve got lots of friends in the peloton who I get on really well with. Perhaps some people have turned against me because of the team I ride for. Some people don’t like the Astana team, that can’t be denied. That’s also why I’m sure that the decision to throw me out of the race wasn’t taken just by the chief race judge. I might be wrong but surely such a big decision will have been approved by the UCI.”
Back racing soon
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/1Ejuyo6
No comments:
Post a Comment