Page of great cycling that written by Vincenzo Nibali on the finish line in Sanremo: an amazing victory that places him more and more in the Olympus of champions of all time. The spark struck in the final part of the Poggio when with a peremptory extension, Nibali left everyone dry, from Sagan to Kwiatkowski, the two great favorites of the eve: the Squalo dived into the final descent taming the treacherous hairpin bends with the skill and the recklessness that we know him. When the race finds the Aurelia 2 and a half km from the finish, his advantage fluctuates between 7 and 11 seconds. A breathtaking finish is expected: there are still two straight stretches that never end up dividing it from the apotheosis of via Roma. Nibali pedals with all the strength he has inside, without ever looking back. Here is the fountain, an icon of Sanremo, which announces the finish line: between him and the others there are less than a hundred meters left which immediately become dangerously less than fifty, but the finish line is now there and Nibali also has time to release the dumbbells to throw the arms towards the sky in jubilation. Behind him, a handful of seconds, Caleb Ewan precedes Demare by a whisker. Sagan, the great loser, is only sixth.
For Nibali the after-race is an explosion of joy and emotion in the crowd cheering his champion: two Giri, one Tour, one Vuelta, two Lombardias but this success in the first classic-monument of the season has a very special flavor , because it was unexpected, because all the attention of insiders and bookmakers was directed elsewhere: to Sagan, to Kwiatkowski, to Demare, to Van Avermaet, to many other sprinters or sprinters. Nibali was out of the predictions on the eve also because of the great classics, Sanremo, due to its layout, is the one that least suits the characteristics of the Sicilian champion. But the Shark, when he participates in a race, never does it, as a born striker, for a simple workout. And the congratulatory phone call, which immediately after his arrival, he received from Eddy Merckx, the Sanremo record-breaking Cannibal with seven successes, had the flavor of the definitive coronation among the greats of every era, those like him capable of winning anywhere in a era of increasingly specialized cycling. And his victory, perhaps the most beautiful of his career for how he has packaged it, illuminates and ennobles a cycling season looming over the unknown factor of the doping case (?) in which Froome is allegedly involved, who is racing sub judice in waiting for the UCI to decide on the traces of salbutamol detected in double the amount allowed in an anti-doping control during the last Vuelta won by the British champion: therapeutic use to combat asthma or fraudulent use to improve performance disguised as a accommodating prescription?
An embarrassing situation if it were not resolved before the departure of the Giro d'Italia in which the four-time winner of the Tour should finally participate: a case that recalls that of Alberto Contador who tested positive for clenbuterol during a checkup during the 2010 Tour he won. a brocodilator drug prohibited beyond certain doses such as salbutamol, which the Spanish rider denied ever having taken, ending up blaming it on a steak eaten during the Grande Boucle. Found guilty by the UCI after an investigation that lasted for over a year, Contador was deprived not only of his third Tour achieved in 2010 but also of the Giro d'Italia which he won in 2011. A shocking story. Should he be punished, Froome risks losing the Vuelta which according to practice would end up in second place which was Nibali. However, it would be the only victory for the Shark that would not make him rejoice. He likes to win and beat everyone like he did in Sanremo.
