"You don't abandon a race halfway": Vincenzo Nibali gives lesson to young GC contenders

Vincenzo Nibali built a legacy across his career as a fearless attacker and an excellent general classification rider. The "Shark of Messina" managed to break Team Sky's Tour de France reign during the last decade, won all three Grand Tours to join a prestigious club of only seven cyclists to have achieved this feat (for now), won both Italian Monuments, and wrapped up his career while still at the top.

That's why it's rather a surprise to learn that for the Sicilian, winning his final, fourth Grand Tour back in 2016 may have been the hardest task of his career.

"I was incredibly stressed," Nibali admitted in an interview for Gazzetta dello Sport. "But even 15-20 days before the start, that was how it was that year… I both loved and hated the Giro. I loved it because it's the Giro; I'd grown up dreaming of that race, like everyone else. I hated it because it felt like I had to win; I raced under the burden of having to come in first. I felt like people expected a lot from me. Everyone."

The public was not always quite aware. But the Italian rider was hardly at his best for the 2016 Giro d'Italia. "It's never been emphasized much, but during the Giro d'Italia, I always suffered from allergies, and that held me back a bit. My eyes would burn, I'd start to breathe worse, and I'd feel bloated. Then I'd take tests, and they'd tell me: 'Nothing's wrong, you're a false allergy sufferer.' Yet I felt bad, except in a few places: in the mountains, for example, I felt better. But I never complained too much."

Even though Nibali had already won the Giro in 2013, the 2016 edition was not going well since the beginning, especially in the mountain time trial up Alpe de Siusi, where Nibali lost two minutes to Steven Kruijswijk - and seemingly the entire race as well. And then when Kruijswijk took another minute and a half the following day, Nibali was down for counting.

"I was fighting, but mentally I wasn't free. I was suffering. I attacked at Asolo, and I remember arguing a bit with Valverde. It wasn't like now, when everyone seems like friends; we were really fighting during the race."

But just three days later, the race was thrown upside down with a queen stage over Colle d'Agnello. The hellish conditions saw Kruijswijk make a mistake in descent and lose over four minutes, suddenly bringing Nibali's chances back alive as new leader Esteban Chaves held less than a minute advantage with a final big mountain day to come. "It was a relief. I didn't think I'd win the Giro, not even then. I only realized later, after the press conference, that victory was within my reach."

The key to his comeback, as Nibali outlines, was to never lose sight of his goal, even if the situation wasn't going to play out in his favor. "You don't abandon a race halfway; something can always change; look what happened on the Finestre last year," Nibali recalls Simon Yates' iconic ride from the 2025 Giro.

His wins aside, Nibali does regret not winning another Grand Tour, in particular the 2010 and 2019 Giro d'Italia. Back in 2010, the Italian had to give up leadership in favor of a more experienced teammate, Ivan Basso, while in 2019, he and Primoz Roglic underestimated Richard Carapaz.

"I don't want to take anything away from Basso, but without that crash on the dirt roads, it would probably have been the 2010 Giro: I would have kept the pink jersey, and it would have been a different race. And maybe the 2019 Giro, when Roglic and I went to war and instead we both lost it."