The Shark circles Tour de France title
HAUTACAM, FRANCE — Vincenzo Nibali assured fans they had no reason to doubt his performances at this year’s Tour de France after again demonstrating his crushing superiority over the rest of a depleted field Thursday.
He claimed the final mountain stage from Pau to Hautacam, via the infamous Col du Tourmalet, to extend his advantage to seven minutes, 10 seconds.
Barring a crash or an act of God, the Italian will be crowned 2014 champion in Paris on Sunday. With only a flat, sprinters’ stage to come Friday, from Maubourguet to Bergerac, before Saturday’s penultimate day time trial, it will take something extraordinary to sink the man they call the Shark.
Nibali, though, denied there was anything unbelievable in the margin of his impending victory.
“Let’s leave the past behind us,” he said after Thursday’s stage, of questions regarding the margin. “If I have a lead of seven minutes, it’s not because of a great performance one day. It’s because of seconds here and there, while my adversaries have sometimes gained something and paid the following day for their efforts.
“My lead is so big because I succeeded in my first goal to gain time on the cobblestones.
“It was certainly not easy to get two minutes, 30 seconds there. If Chris Froome had not had any problems on the pave, it would have been a difficult day for him.”
That’s true and Froome’s fate is a reminder that dreams can vanish in an instant. Nibali might have suffered a catastrophe himself Thursday when, streaking up the Hautacam in a late solo attack, he struck the arm of a female spectator who was on her phone with her back to him.
The incident brought to mind the complaints from the peloton about the new craze for ‘selfies’ during the Grand Depart in the U.K. nearly three weeks ago.
How long ago those stages feel now. Back then, Froome and Alberto Contador were expected to duke it out for the yellow jersey.
Their departures made Nibali’s job easier but it would be uncharitable to suggest the Italian does not deserve his title. This will be the first time a Tour de France winner has won four road stages since the great Eddy Merckx in 1974. Since Froome and Contador crashed out, he has done exactly what has needed to be done, taking time out of his rivals on almost every stage, and always with something to spare.