Vincenzo Nibali – The farewell interview

Vincenzo Nibali insists he is not emotional about retiring from professional cycling after his hugely successful 18-year career, but when he crosses the finish line of Il Lombardia in Como on Saturday, he knows there might be some tears.

"I’m happy but relaxed about it all, at least for the moment. I’m sure that’ll change at Il Lombardia but I don’t want to live my last race as something dramatic or sad, I want to enjoy it all,” Nibali told Cyclingnews during an exclusive interview.  

"My form is good, as I’d hoped, so I want to go out on a high. It’d be far worse if my career ended anonymously. Il Lombardia is a special race for me, I’ve won it twice, and so I would love to end everything with a result to be proud of."

Nibali announced his plans to call time on his racing career during the Giro d’Italia in May after making a decision privately with his family a few weeks before. 

He will turn 38 on November 14 and has been a professional since 2005. Before that, he travelled from his family home in Messina to Tuscany every weekend to race as a promising Junior. 

Nibali is ready for the next chapter of his life, which includes a role in the new Swiss ProTeam that Doug Ryder is creating from the ashes of the Qhubeka team, with backing from the Q36.5 clothing brand and other sponsors.

"It’s the right moment to call time on my career. I've been racing long enough," Nibali said.

"Some people have told me I should take a year off to relax and enjoy myself but I’m not like that. I don’t want to stay at home and do nothing. I want a new challenge.  

"My racing career is about to end but my life in cycling will continue. I’m already busy with my role in the new team and that’s exciting for me."

In Italian cycling’s pantheon of greats

Nibali's success, which spanned victories in all three Grand Tours and two of the five Monuments, along with his longevity and aggressive style of racing have secured him a place in Italian cycling’s pantheon.

He may be a step below Fausto Coppi, Gino Bartali and Marco Pantani but the breadth of his success gives him a special place in cycling history. Only Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Felice Gimondi, Bernard Hinault, Alberto Contador and Chris Froome have won all three Grand Tours during their careers, and Nibali has been the figurehead of Italian cycling for a generation.  

Nibali was never comfortable speaking in English but expressed himself as he showed his talents on the bike. He was a superb descender and smart-thinking tactician, who combined his innate Sicilian pride with a love for racing.    

At a recent career retrospective during the Festival of sport in Trento, organised by La Gazzetta dello Sport, he was reminded of a phrase that perfectly encompassed his style of racing. It earned him the descriptive nickname of the Lo Squalo dello Stretto di Messina – the shark from the Messina Strait.

"I was never scared to follow my instinct and then attack. That’s how I won the biggest races. If you hesitate or hold back, your chance has gone," Nibali once said.  

"When you feel good and it’s the right moment, you’ve got to attack, right?" he suggested. 

"Maybe I'm not a great communicator or a social media star, but I’ve always tried to show who I am when racing.

"Racing is not about looking at your power meter or even respecting every team order. If you feel good, you’ve got to go for it. I was never scared to assume responsibility for what I did and what I might fail to do. That’s bike racing.”

18 seasons of success

Nibali turned professional in 2005 with Fassa Bortolo and made his Giro d’Italia debut two years later, finishing 19th behind his then Liquigas team leader Danilo Di Luca. 

A year later he finished 11th and also made his debut at the Tour de France, wearing the best young rider’s white jersey for a spell and indicating his Grand Tour talents. He returned to finish sixth at the subsequent Tour and then third at the 2010 Corsa Rosa.

"I learnt how to suffer as a domestique in those early years and that helped me understand what my teammates went through when I was a team leader and they were suffering for me," Nibali said.

"That’s important and I think it makes you a better rider. I’m happy I reached my best gradually, year after year. Young riders don’t seem to be like that these days. They want to win and want to take your place, without blinking an eye. 

"I’m not criticising them - I’d probably be the same if I was their age now - but that indicates how much society and cycling has changed."

Nibali’s first Grand Tour victory came at the Vuelta a Espana in 2010, opening a decade of Grand Tour success and podiums. He won his first Giro d'Italia in 2013, the Tour de France in 2014, and a second Corsa Rosa in 2016. His 27 Grand Tours include 11 podium places and 16 top-ten results. 

"The Tour win was the biggest win of my career because the Tour is such a big global event. Of course, my two Giro d’Italia wins are special too. I’ve got the trophies at my home and just looking at them gives me goosebumps," Nibali said.

"As an Italian, the Giro is the race you dream about as a boy. My dad was a huge Francesco Moser fan and we used to watch video tapes of his races. I grew up admiring Gianni Bugno and Claudio Chiappucci in the early 1990s and then forged my own career by leaving to race in Tuscany. I simply loved racing and soon realised I could perhaps do well in Grand Tours."

Nibali dominated the 2014 Tour de France, winning four stages. He attacked in the final kilometres of stage 2 to Sheffield to win alone and take the yellow jersey, which he held for 19 stages to Paris.

"Some people say that Froome and Contador crashing out of the Tour helped me but I think I showed I was in great form and deserved to win the Tour," Nibali argued modestly. 

"Winning the Tour de France after it started in Britain was special. I remember the huge crowds, and my stage win in Sheffield, that day set up my victory. I got the yellow jersey and kept it virtually all the way to Paris. There was also the famous stage on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix in the rain and all the suffering for the rest of the race."

Nibali had won the 2013 Giro d’Italia with a similarly dominant performance. Bradley Wiggins' challenge quickly fell apart and Nibali won the mountain time trial to Polsa and then capped his overall victory the day after with a solo triumph in the cold and snow atop Tre Cime di Lavaredo.

His second victory in 2016 was less straightforward. He had accepted advice to use longer cranks at the start of the season, thinking it would help him produce more power. During the first half of the Giro, Nibali struggled and lost 2:13 to Primož Roglič in the Chianti time trial. As Dutch rider Steven Kruijswijk cut an increasingly solid figure in the pink jersey, the pressure mounted day after day.

"When things kept going wrong at the Giro, I decided to go back to my old position and use shorter cranks during the Giro and it helped me," Nibali revealed.

"It perhaps wasn’t the answer to all my problems, it didn’t make me win, but it was the ‘click’ that started my fightback. Then the rest of the race went my way and I took advantage of my form and the racing, including the Kruijswijk crash."

Kruijswijk hit a snowbank on the descent of the Colle dell’Agnello on stage 19, losing any chance of victory, with Nibali winning the stage to Risoul in France and then snatching the maglia rosa from Esteban Chaves on the steep road to Sant’Anna di Vinadio on the penultimate day of the race. 

Nibali’s best Grand Tour seasons were also entwined with his victories in the Classics, further boosting his profile in the sport and the love for his style of racing.  

In 2015, he was again under pressure from Astana team manager Alexander Vinokourov and from the tifosi - the Italian fans. He withdrew to Sicily after being disqualified from the Vuelta a España for holding onto his team car during stage 2 and plotted revenge during long rides on the slopes of Mount Etna.

At Il Lombardia he attacked hard on the Civiglio climb and then dropped Thibaut Pinot on the final ascent of San Fermo della Battaglia to win alone. An Italian flag stuck to his blue Astana jersey as he took victory at his first Monument, signalling Nibali as an Italian winner and ending the polemics about him not wearing a classic Italian national champion’s tricolore jersey.

He won in similar fashion on the same Como finale in 2017 after finishing third in the Giro and second at the Vuelta. His best Grand Tour seasons were perhaps behind him, with Chris Froome and Alberto Contador beating him, but he remained tenacious and proud and was the team leader and figurehead at the new Bahrain-Merida team.  

It was in the middle of his three seasons with the team, in 2018, that Nibali broke through at Milan-San Remo. He had tried attacks at the race in the past but never got away and was never going to be a contender in a sprint on the Via Roma. However, he was never afraid to try. 

Perhaps thanks to a deal with former Liquigas teammate Peter Sagan, the Slovakian opted not to chase Nibali when he surged away near the top of the Poggio. The other riders hesitated too, and Nibali was gone, diving down the descent with his superb bike handling skills and then powering to the finish before a show of emotion.

"Winning Milan-San Remo was a moment," he recalled.

"A Classic is such an intense moment and Milan-San Remo is especially so because of the Poggio finish. I still struggle to realise that it came off and I won."

Nibali may have won the biggest races in the sport but there were also crashes, injuries and disappointments. He crashed out of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games with a medal within grasp. At the 2018 Tour de France, while racing to L’Alpe d’Huez, a roadside fan caused him to crash, leaving him with a fractured vertebra. 

He was also muscled out of a future management role at the Bahrain team by Milan Erzan and then spent an often frustrating two seasons at Trek-Segafredo as he struggled to return to his very best. Nibali opted to return to Astana for his farewell season, his trusted soigneur Michele Pallini also opting to leave the sport this year, as an era ends for them both.

The pressure of being an Italian idol

Nibali has been the idol of the Italian tifosi for all of his career, carrying all their hopes and expectations each season. The Italian media also expected him to win every race he targeted, celebrating him with big headlines but also always pushing him for more.      

“I can admit now that I suffered under the pressure and expectation," Nibali revealed to Cyclingnews.

"I’ve always been in the spotlight in Italy but it’s not easy to handle all the expectation and attention. Look at Jonas Vingegaard after he won the Tour. Everyone wants a piece of you or think they can criticise you without knowing you.

"I didn’t hide away and so went to races even when I wasn't 100% and competitive. Some people didn't understand that but I always liked to race, even if I had to suffer and couldn’t live up to the expectations."

Nibali’s career is packed with memorable moments, from when a major victory saved a season or a defeat left him smouldering with anger and a sense of revenge. Amongst his career there were also some key decisions made and roads not taken.

In 2009 Nibali was high-up on Dave Brailsford’s shopping list for the nascent Team Sky. He was tempted and would always admire the British team’s Grand Tour success but perhaps a lack of English and conviction led him to stay with Liquigas and then onto Astana and Bahrain.  

"It was a sliding doors moment for me and for them," Nibali recalled.

"There was one moment during that summer when I was close to joining Team Sky. But I had a contract with Liquigas and it was difficult to break it. We talked about a move a year later but in the meantime they signed Brad Wiggins. He burst onto the scene and then won the 2012 Tour."

Nibali regularly clashed with Wiggins and Froome as they led Team Sky in the Grand Tours, often exchanging harsh words and barbs via the media. But it was all part of the racing business, and nothing personal.  

"We were fierce rivals and so every so often there was some tension and the odd word was exchanged. But I’ve always got on with Froome and I always had a lot of respect for Wiggins because he transformed his career and won the Tour," he said.  

Last race but thinking of the future with a new team

Nibali will pin a race number on his jersey for the last time on Saturday morning before Il Lombardia, in what is the end of a chapter rather than a farewell from the sport.

Nibali will keep riding his bike in the hills above his Swiss home in Lugano, to stay fit and keep his bike skills on point.  

"Il Lombardia will be my final official race but I won’t stop me riding my bike," he made clear, confirming his immediate and long-term career plans.

"I’m going to ride the Saitama Tour de France criterium in Japan next month and then I hope to ride the Cape Epic mountain bike in South Africa too. I think it’s a great way to enjoy riding even as a former pro."

Nibali describes himself as an ambassador for the new Swiss ProTeam that Doug Ryder and Luigi Bergamo of the Q36.5 clothing brand are creating. However, he appears to be more deeply involved. We won’t see him in the team car as a directeur sportif but he will share his experience and expertise.  

"Doug has done a great job, and we have the directors Alex Sans Vega and Gabriele Missaglia. It’ll be a young team but a good team," Nibali said with enthusiasm.  

"It’s a new adventure for me and for the team but we're ready to face the problems and enjoy the success. It’s very stimulating for me and I'm happy to be part of it all. It’s the next chapter of my life after a life as a racer."