10 conclusions from the Giro d'Italia

Image 1 of 10

Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) is crowned the 2013 Giro d'Italia winner(Image credit: Bettini Photo)

Nibali the figurehead of Italian cycling At his post-race press conference in Brescia, almost all of the questions put to Vincenzo Nibali centred around his status as the new figurehead of Italian cycling. The succession of doping scandals since the 1990s means that the sport has been dragged through the mire over the past decade and cycling’s impact on the public consciousness in Italy has diminished dramatically since Marco Pantani’s heyday.

The shy, softly-spoken Nibali is a very different personality to Pantani or Cipollini, but he has been promoted by the Italian media as the leader of a new, more human generation, marking a clean break from the sins of the past. His victory at Tre Cime di Lavaredo certainly inspired the tifosi and boosted television ratings, and the hope now is that his triumph will also boost the number of young riders entering the sport in Italy. For Nibali, great responsibility comes with his new power.

It’s not as high-profile as Sky’s ongoing Bradley Wiggins/Chris Froome melodrama but the question of Tour de France leadership at BMC has been one of the subplots of the opening months of the season. When Cadel Evans was asked to line up at the Giro at short notice, it seemed as though the Australian was being gently nudged out of the status of team leader for the Tour in favour of the younger Tejay van Garderen, who, after all, finished two places ahead of him last July.

Instead, Evans ends the race with his management reasserting that he is the outright leader for the Tour after he battled his way to the third spot on the podium in Brescia. His sub-par showing in the Polsa time trial will be a concern but Evans can argue that only a mechanical problem at Tre Cime di Lavaredo cost him second overall and he has been making optimistic noises about his chances in France.

When Sky dominated the Tour de France last year by setting the tempo on the front of the peloton in the high mountains and disarming all attacks, it seemed as though the British squad had established a new paradigm for winning grand tours. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over how on earth to stop them from strangling stage races to death for the foreseeable future, but the Giro d’Italia provided an answer of sorts.

Sky’s model is based largely on dictating affairs in controlled environments where brute strength wins out, such as time trials and long mountain passes, so Vincenzo Nibali, Ryder Hesjedal, Cadel Evans et al took the battle to them elsewhere. The Giro’s sinuous opening stages in southern Italy, on rolling roads and sharp descents, were always going to be difficult for any one team to control and so it proved. The guerrilla warfare waged there put Bradley Wiggins on the back foot before the opening time trial.

Illness meant that Wiggins never had the opportunity to try and fight back in earnest on friendlier terrain, but given that Chris Froome’s Tirreno-Adriatico challenge fell apart in similar circumstances – the Sky team was scattered to the four winds on the rugged road to Porto Sant’Elpidio – there is food for thought for those looking to derail their ambitions in July. The roads of the Tour are very different to the Giro, of course, and might not present the same opportunities, but in May, at least, fortune favoured the bold.

It is deeply encouraging to see that kind of heartfelt and open abhorrence for cheating (it would have been unimaginable a decade ago), but there is also a sense that Di Luca, like Riccò, is an unpopular figure in the peloton and, as such, an easy scapegoat. The fierce criticism one rider unleashed upon Di Luca, for instance, did not tally with an incident at a training camp last season, when the same rider attempted to stop a reporter from asking a teammate questions about his implication in a doping inquiry.

In the media, too, Di Luca – like Riccò before him – took on the role of stock villain or the lone black sheep. For many, he is the doper from an older generation who didn’t understand that the music has changed. One certainly hopes that is the case, but it is an indictment of the certain prevailing cultures in the sport that even now, in 2013, a sponsor was willing to offer a repeat doping offender a place on its Giro team ahead of a younger rider.

Cue his capitulation as he slipped of the running due to illness and at time poor luck. There was a brief fight back in the third week as the 26-year-old attempted to rescue a top ten place but pulling out with two days remaining was a bitter blow for him and the team. The fact is that Gesink fails to finish almost half the grand tours he starts with the ratio currently at 5 finishes to 3 abandons.