One hundred and eleven yellow jerseys and 34 stage victories: Eddy Merckx's record numbers at the Tour are monstrous and unattainable. Not even Lance Armstrong, in his seven Tours won and then revoked, has managed to do so much. But what Vincenzo Nibali has done in this Tour is sensational. And it is no coincidence that the Equipe, at the end of the superb undertaking on the summit of Hautacam in the stage of the legendary Tourmalet, greeted him with a title drawn from the Merckxian vocabulary: "C'est Canibali". Two days after the triumphal catwalk of the Champs Elysées, the booty of the Yellow Shark, the Requin jaune for the French, is exhilarating: four stage victories – not even Froome, the Martian of the 2013 Tour did so much -, 19 days in the yellow jersey on a total of 21 stages from Leeds to Paris, a number of days with the symbol of primacy that places him on a par with Fausto Coppi. A Tour dominated right from the start in England with that first peremptory stretch in view of the finish line in Sheffield: then three acute ones in the doc stages, at Planche des Belles Filles in the Vosges, at Chamrousse in the Alps, the last at Hautacam in the Pyrenees. An extraordinary show of strength that projects him into the "Hall of fame" of the history of the Tour, because Nibali is winning it big, like the champions of every era did, like and better than last year's Froome. Cycling is hungry for feats to exalt itself and has found a perfect interpreter in Nibali, because the Shark loves to attack and put on a show even when it has no need. Like on the final ramp at 1520 meters of the Hautacam: after the descent of the Tourmalet without damage, the Tour mission was done for Nibali. There was only the ascent to Hautacam to be administered and it was enough to look in the face of Nibali's various rivals – or presumed ones – to understand that the yellow jersey could sleep peacefully. But Nibali is a purebred champion, he doesn't like to run on the spur of the moment, like Wiggins in 2012: like this: when in the group of classification men the old Chris Horner, 43 years old in October, remembering that he won the last Vuelta by beating the Shark got up on the pedals breaking the hesitation and sprinting forward, the yellow jersey decided to go wild flying away towards his fourth triumph which put the definitive seal on the Tour. Just like Merckx did, the Cannibal.
Today the Tour returned to the plains towards Bergerac, over 200 km under heavy rain: Ramuna Navardauskas won with a stretch in the final characterized by a carom by about ten riders including Sagan and Bardet. A tangle that broke up the group, with Nibali good at discarding the mess of bikes and wheels, but that doesn't affect the classification because it happened in the last 3 km and the times are neutralized. To define who will be the two "dolphins" who will accompany the Parisian podium remains the time trials of this Saturday with Tony Martin as the big favorite but watch out for Nibali who won't just want to take a walk. Pinot, Peraud and Valverde are very far from the yellow jersey, but they are only separated by a handful of seconds. Latest skirmishes between subjects which only the French are looking at with interest, hoping to get back on the podium after a 17-year fast. He, the tyrant of the Grande Boucle, can already enjoy the fulfillment of a trilogy of authors – Tour, Giro and Vuelta – which places Nibali on a par with a few other champions such as Merckx, Anquetil, Gimondi, Hinault and Contador. Anyone who wants to diminish the thickness of Nibali's triumph can only cling to the falls of Froome and Contador, forced to retire even before the Alps and Pyrenees started. But the success of the Italian champion was legitimized by a constant superiority so much so that the first to be sorry for the bad luck that raged against Froome and Contador was Nibali himself. That in a state of form like the one displayed by Leeds to date, he could have beaten the two big favorites of the eve, giving us stellar battles in the Alps and Pyrenees. After all, falls are part of the job. Merckx also won the 1971 Tour, marred by the drama of Luis Ocana. The Spaniard had outclassed the Belgian champion at Orcières Merlette by snatching the yellow jersey from him but the day after he crashed on the Col du Menthe ending up in hospital.
