The destiny of the maglia rosa may have been a foregone conclusion for nigh-on two weeks but at least Vincenzo Nibali rode like a champion on his way to his first Giro d’Italia crown.
Entering the race, the 28-year-old Sicilian was one of the big favourites alongside defending champion Ryder Hesjedal and Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins.
But with both Hesjedal and Wiggins unable to deal with the brutal conditions dealt out by the cycling gods, Nibali instead found himself up against a Colombian who had never before led a team and a veteran Australian who had struggled to reach anything remotely resembling form for over a year.
For much of the race, Cadel Evans looked a genuine threat – but the BMC rider’s chances of glory tapered off, funnily enough, just around the moment team manager Jim Ochowicz announded that 36-year-old Evans, and not Tejay van Garderen (the 24-year-old winner of this month’s Tour of California), would lead BMC at the Tour de France.
Safe in the knowledge that he had been given the nod, Evans lost more than two and a half minutes in the individual mountain time trial on Thursday, describing the winner Nibali as being “in a league of his own” while suggesting that he was merely training ahead of his main season’s target, the Tour.
To be fair to Evans, he always entered the Giro as a means to getting into shape and get vital racing practice under his belt that he has lacked in recent months.
It must have done his confidence a world of good to feel competitive once again – even if the cancellation and shortening of certain key stages may have papered over some cracks.
Indeed, had the race been ridden in temperatures more in sync with May time in Italy, the time losses incurred by the likes of Evans and even Uran could have been much more substantial than the four-odd minutes they were come Brescia.
Evans was perhaps as surprised as anyone after 10 days of the Giro to see the race open up with him installed as Nibali’s main rival following the withdrawals of Hedjedal and Wiggins.
Seeing two great champions leave the Giro was rather anti-climatic – but entirely understandable given their shared form and health concerns.
For cycling fans it was a blow: just as when Wiggins suffered a mechanical in the deciding mountain stage of the Giro del Trentino earlier in the spring, we were deprived of the head-to-head that we were promised would define the race.
But the worse Wiggins looked on his bike, the better Nibali appeared on – and even off – his own.
On two occasions on the wet descent to the finish in Treviso in the opening week, Nibali came off his Specialized after overshooting tight and slippery bends; but it was Wiggins’s far less dramatic over-the-handlebar Pinarello tumble on the inside of a tight hairpin bend 3km from the finish that will linger longer in the memory bank.
Tellingly, it was this same crash that not only did for Wiggins’s chances – but also made it unlikely that Sky could regroup behind Rigoberto Uran. The Colombian was inexplicably ordered back to pace Wiggins back into the fold – and in doing so lost over a minute himself.
A few days later, Uran would put himself back into the reckoning on GC with a stage-winning attack in the race’s first summit finish – but even though Uran went on to finish second in Brescia, the 26-year-old was never in with a real sniff of the maglia rosa, such was Nibali’s flawless dominance.
Far more interesting for the neutral spectators was the battle for the red and white jerseys – although Stefano Pirazzi’s relentless attacks in pursuit of the blue jersey were also a thing of wonder.
It was something of a let-down, then, to see Bardiani Valvole’s Pirazzi crowned the king of the mountain by virtue of Friday’s cancelled stage 19. They always said the Stelvio would be decisive; in the end, it was only decisive in its absence.
Rafal Majka (Saxo-Tinkoff) and Carlos Betancur (Ag2R-La Mondiale) traded the white jersey on numerous occasions before the Colombian eventually put in a winning turn on the snow-capped Tre Cime di Lavaredo on Saturday to edge 41 seconds clear of the Pole.
That their nearest rival, the Dutchman Wilco Kelderman pf Blanco, finished almost 13 minutes in arrears is testimony to the gulf between the peloton’s young bucks.
Gulf in class is something that’s often uttered in the same breath as Mark Cavendish. For someone like Cavendish, even completing a race as meteorologically and geographically brutal as the 2013 Giro would be an achievement in itself.
Cavendish not only finished a race that most sprinters gave up, he did so by winning five stages and completing a 100% clean sweep of all bunch sprints while also notching up his 100th career win in the process.
But it was victory in the red jersey points competition that was his most extraordinary achievement. Granted, the cancellation of stage 19 aided matters – but Cav still had to overturn a 11-point deficit to Nibali on the final stage to Brescia (which, in rather bizarre circumstances, saw him win the second intermediate sprint on three occasions).
By securing the red jersey, Cavendish became the first sprinter since Daniele Bennati in 2008 to win the Giro’s points classification.
Let’s now gaze back over the last week of the race before making some predictions for the rest of the season…
Stage 16: Intxausti remembers Xavi with an X
Former pink jersey Benat Intxausti gives Movistar their third win of the race after playing his cards right in a three-way sprint at Ivrea. The Spaniard roars past Przemyslaw Niemiec and Tanel Kangert to take the biggest win of his career after the ever-suffering Dutchman Robert Gesink has a mechanical failure on the cobbled roads ahead of the finish straight.
Maglia rosa Vincenzo Nibali is once again flawless as he finishes safely in a select group 13 seconds down on the leading trio – but it’s a nightmare for Mauro Santambrogio, who loses more than a minute after cracking on the decisive Cat.3 climb before the finish.
Making an X with his fingers as he crosses the line, Intxausti pays tribute to his friend and former team-mate Xavi Tondo who passed away almost two years ago to the day.
Stage 17: Visconti victorious in Vicenza
Attacking on the steep 12% section of a Cat.4 climb near to the finish, Italy’s Giovanni Visconti reels in two riders (including seemingly evergreen veteran Danilo Di Luca) before holding off the chasing pack to take his second and Movistar’s fourth of the race.
Australia’s Luke Durbridge (Orica-GreenEdge), the youngest man in the race, is one of four riders with the unfortunate task of making a break stick on the largely pan-flat 218km stage from Caravaggio. The break are swept up on the final climb but the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team of Mark Cavendish can’t get their man over the summit still in contention – setting the scene for Visconti’s audacious bid for glory.
Stage 18: Nibali shows his strength
Despite being bolstered by news that he has won the BMC leadership contest ahead of the Tour de France, Cadel Evans pedals squares in the decisive mountain time trial to slip to more than four minutes down on maglia rosa Vincenzo Nibali on GC.
Starting last, the Italian defies heavy rain fall to power through the split with a healthy advantage before, almost catching Evans, crossing the line a full 58 seconds ahead of the target time set by Spaniard Samuel Sanchez of Euskaltel. The thrilling duel for the white jersey continues with Rafal Majka moving five slender seconds clear of Carlos Betancur.
Australian veteran Evans is both realistic and gracious in defeat, tweeting: “Uphill TT done here at the Giro: Nibali in a class of his own. Evans – if I may say so myself – abysmal… #trainingride”.
Stage 19: Killer caught, stage cancelled
There’s no action at all when heavy snow in the Alps forces race organisers to cancel the entire stage. The enforced day off brings what rest days usually bring – news of a positive dope test.
This time the culprit is serial offender Danilo Di Luca as the UCI announces the Italian veteran failed an out-of-competition test for EPO prior to the Giro.
The self-styled ‘Killer’ is sacked by his Vini Fantini team with directeur sportif Luca Scinto saying he never wanted Di Luca as part of his team anyway.
Stage 20: Nibali peerless in the Dolomites
Having underlined his dominance with victory in the uphill TT, Nibali dots the i’s and crosses the t’s with his first road stage win of the race, attacking at the foot of the highest climb in the race to power through the snow and secure the biggest victory of his career.
Evans continues his slight downward trajectory, toiling to 14th on the stage and dropping to third on GC at the expense of Sky’s Rigoberto Uran, who is one of three Colombians to finish in the top four at Tre Cime di Lavaredo.
Stage 21: Cav at the ready – three times
A confusion regarding the second intermediate sprint means Mark Cavendish wins it on three different occasions on consecutive laps of the city circuit before getting confirmation that he has overturned an 11-point deficit to Nibali in the red jersey standings.
Safe in the knowledge that the jersey is finally his, Cavendish shifts his focus onto taking a fifth stage to complete his 100% record of bunch sprint wins – which he does with aplomb, beating Sacha Modolo by a bike length in Brescia. His fifth win of the race is also his fifth sprint ‘win’ of the day after also taking maximum points at the first intermediate gallop.
Nibali coasts home surrounded by his Astana team-mates, whose bikes are all carrying matching pink bar tape in celebration of their man’s overall win. Aged 28, Nibali has now won both the Vuelta and Giro – and will next season surely shift his attention to completing a rare clean sweep with triumph in the Tour.
Predictions for the rest of the season…
– Evans may start the Tour as BMC’s leader but this won’t be the case come Paris;
– Wiggins will start the Tour as second fiddle at Sky but won’t get to see the streets of Paris as any kind of fiddle;
– Uran and Nibali will renew their rivalry in the Vuelta and once again it will be the Italian who comes out on top to cap an astonishing season;
– The green jersey tussle between Cavendish and Peter Sagan will be one of the most memorable in recent years – and will see Cav leave it late to take the upper hand on the final stage into Paris;
– Sagan will have the last laugh, however, when becoming world champion in Tuscany – easily outsprinting Betancur from a break to take the rainbow jersey in Florence;
– Despite all the talk linking Uran to Omega Pharma-Quick Step, the Colombian will join GreenEdge on a two-year deal, finally giving the Australian team something else than the Matt Goss card to play in Grand Tours.
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