Vincenzo Nibali won the Tour de France today and became the first Italian in 16 years to triumph in this great race.
The 29-year-old Sicilian, who called himself “a flag-bearer of antidoping” during the race, finished in the pack behind Marcel Kittel, who won the 21st stage in a sprint finish.
Nibali’s victory comes after the pre-race favorites—2013 champion Chris Froome and two-time winner Alberto Contador – crashed out with injuries in the first half of this year’s Tour.
Astana team leader Nibali is only the sixth rider to win all three Grand Tours—France, Italy and Spain. The last Italian to win the Tour de France was Marco Pantani in 1998.
After cruising after Kittel, a German who got his fourth stage win, Nibali got pats on the back, kissed his wife and infant daughter and was mobbed by cameras as race organizers hustled him away to prepare for the final awards ceremony.
“Unbelievable,” said Kittel, whose victories bookended this Tour. He won stage one when British rival Mark Cavendish crashed out in the final sprint.
Nibali also won four stages, a feat not equaled by a Tour winner since Lance Armstrong won five a decade ago. He wore the yellow jersey for all but two stages since stage one. His 7-minute, 52-second margin over runner-up Jean-Christophe Peraud is the largest since Jan Ullrich of Germany beat second-placed Richard Virenque by just over 9 minutes in 1997.
In one of the subplots of this race, Peraud and third-placed Thibaut Pinot became the first Frenchmen to reach the Tour podium since Virenque in that same year.
But such comparisons, many cycling insiders have noted, miss the mark. Armstrong, Ullrich and Virenque were three of the big-name riders caught in nearly a generation of doping scandals in cycling. Armstrong, in the biggest scandal ever in the sport, admitted to doping and was stripped of his record seven Tour titles. – AP
