Sports Eye
2014 Tour de France winner Nibali
By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.
IT WAS during the quarter-finals of 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil when this year’s Tour de France (TdF) commenced on July 5. Well, despite my immeasurable love of the two-wheeled event being a former professional cyclist, I deliberately did not prioritize following the first week of the TdF results and focused on the World Cup skirmishes up to the championship. The football WC is a quadrennial meet and considered as the most popular sport in the world while TdF though touted as the premiere bicycle road race on Earth, is being held annually.
Like in the past, the last ten days of TdF which are mostly run in the mountains are the most crucial stages. And that’s how the new TdF champ Vincenzo Nibali of Italy regained the lead in the mountainous 10th stage he lost earlier to Frenchman Tony Gallopin on the eight, enhanced it on the 13th and 18th stages and never relinquished the front up to the 21st and last day of the bikefest. Nibali’s triumph was Italy’s first after 16 years of title drought behind Marco Pantani in 1998. He’s the tenth Italian rider to win this most prestigious bicycle race in the world. TdF was born in 1903 and the first Italian to do so was Ottavio Bottecchia in 1925.
Nibali, 29, born in Messina, Sicily was the sixth professional cyclist to win three Grand Tours in the world for winning the 21-day Vuelta a Espana (Tour of Spain) in 2010, the 21-day Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy) in 2013 and this year’s TdF. The other five were Eddy Merckx of Belguim, Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault of France, Alberto Contador of Spain and Nibali’s compatriot Felice Gimondi. No cyclist has won all three Grand Tours in the same year although many of the greats tried but all failed. Being a former cyclist I know that it’d be too taxing and too strenuous to accomplish it. Unlike this year’s TdF (also called Tour by the European scribes) where Nibali won four stages (2, 10, 13 and 18), Nibali oddly won the 2010 Vuelta by not winning a single stage. He was the only consistent rider in the Vuelta that propelled him for his first Grand Tour victory. I described this triumph of Nibali similar to Gonzalo Recodos victory in the 1963 Tour of Luzon and Paquito Rivas in the 1979 Marlboro Tour winning these big races, respectively, sans winning single stage.
Defending champion Christopher Froome of England and two-time TdF winner Alberto Contador quit this year’s race after two weeks because of crash-related injuries the two suffered during the cobblestone and the mountain stages. Nibali rode trouble-free throughout the three weeks of racing and connoisseurs said this was the big reason why Nibali won in a convincing fashion outdistancing his closest pursuer Frenchman Christopher Peraud in seven minutes and 52 seconds, one of the longest gap of lead in the history of modern TdF. Observers also said that the absence of this year’s Giro winner Nairo Quintana of Colombia was also the factor, short of belittling the win of Nibali. But I guess they’re wrong. I believe the guy is at the prime of his career (now) being a 29 year-old very skilled rider. I can say this because this also happened to me when I was 29 years of age and conquered most of the races that I have participated in. But let’s wait and see when these four continental giants clash again like in this coming Vuelta in September, that’s if the four are inclined to do so. If not, maybe they’ll meet in the Giro in May and for sure in the TdF in July next year.
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: And Jesus Christ said “But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you.” “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” LUKE 14: 10-11
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