{"id":339311,"date":"2025-12-28T13:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T13:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/339311\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T13:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T13:45:08","slug":"vincenzo-nibali-rules-out-a-move-to-the-team-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/339311\/","title":{"rendered":"Vincenzo Nibali rules out a move to the team car"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nNibali started with Alessandro De Marchi, who recently announced his retirement after 16 years in the professional peloton<\/a>. \u201cDe Marchi was one of those riders who went in the breakaway all day. A hard worker, but in a certain sense also a visionary.\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a rider he had great tenacity, a born fighter. Sometimes he didn\u2019t speak much, other times he made himself heard with a firm, decisive voice and words that made you think. He went from one extreme to the other, so we\u2019ll have to see whether that contrast will also emerge when he\u2019s a sports director.\u201d<\/p>\n

That ability to make decisions under pressure, Nibali added, will be decisive for all four. \u201cWe\u2019ll have to see whether they can be colder when it comes to making quick decisions. The same applies to the others. Like Brambilla, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nibali knows Gianluca Brambilla<\/a> well, having shared both team (they were teammates at Trek – Segafredo in 2020 and 2021) and room with him. \u201cI know how he reasons. He\u2019s thoughtful, but not too much, and he\u2019s always found solutions quickly. He could be a director who gives very fast input from the team car and immediately reads what\u2019s happening in the race.\u201dGavazzi\u2019s instincts and Visconti\u2019s passionMeanwhile, Francesco Gavazzi<\/a> also received praise for his racing intelligence. \u201cGavazzi has the advantage of being fairly fast as well, so when he went into breakaways, he rarely made mistakes. In my opinion, he has the ability to become an excellent sports director.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giovanni Visconti, by contrast, stands out for a different characteristic. \u201cVisconti is a bit more hot-blooded,\u201d Nibali explained.\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s hot-blooded like me, he comes from the south, so he\u2019s more impulsive, but he\u2019s also a very good listener. In my opinion, if Giovanni sits down and listens to what his riders say, he can turn that into a great tool to become an excellent sports director.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cycling has evolved a lot, and nowadays being a sports director implies much more than just giving radio instructions to the riders.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s true that today it\u2019s not just about getting in the team car and talking on the radio. There are many other things to pay attention to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe organisational aspect, but also reading maps, knowing how to use Veloviewer, explaining the stage, doing the planning. The old-school sports director, who used to go around the hotel rooms, has disappeared in recent years. Communications now arrive by email, so it\u2019s a different role. But the four of them have what it takes to be very good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Vincenzo<\/p>\n

Vincenzo Nibali won the queen stage of the 2013 Giro d’Italia, celebrating his triumph in a snowy Tre Cime di Lavaredo<\/p>\n

Why Nibali himself would not become a director<\/p>\n

Despite his insight, Nibali does not see himself in that role. \u201cI probably wouldn\u2019t be capable of being a sports director,\u201d he admitted.\u201cI reasoned based on what I felt in my legs. I had an engine, I accelerated and went. If you don\u2019t have that engine, you have to manage fatigue differently. You have to read the race and attack at very precise moments. I could afford to attack from far out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nibali has actually completed a coaching course, but more for personal growth than to use it professionally. \u201cI did the first-level course, I wanted to do the second as well, but then family life took over and I stopped. I did it because it\u2019s highly educational. It helped me understand the importance of the psychological aspect, the approach to races, the regulations and convoy composition.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, he concluded, becoming a sports director is not a priority, although he leaves a small door open. \u201cI never thought about becoming a sporting director, because you’re always on the move. It’s not so much a question of desire as of the type of work. It’s not a priority for me right now. Someone thought I could be the national team manager, and maybe that could happen in the very distant future, not now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nibali started with Alessandro De Marchi, who recently announced his retirement after 16 years in the professional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[122243,4985,131712,131711,101,56,54,55,118404],"class_list":["post-339311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-alessandro-de-marchi","tag-cycling","tag-francesco-gavazzi","tag-gianluca-brambilla","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-vincenzo-nibali"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}