Vincenzo Nibali on Saturday all but secured a second Giro d’Italia success with a brave ride to sixth place in the 20th and penultimate stage.
Starting the day second 44 seconds behind leader Esteban Chaves, Italian Nibali made up 1 minute, 36 seconds on the Colombian to snatch the pink jersey.
Yesterday’s flat, final stage from Cuneo to Torino was to be little more than a procession.
Photo: EPA
“I thought maybe everything was lost, but also maybe that it still was not over,” said Nibali, who had been criticized by the Italian media while struggling earlier in the race.
“The last week can change and I thought something could happen. I am very headstrong, I never give up. Last year, at the Tour [de France], I had bad days, but I always try and come back,” he said.
“It was a crazy Giro. A difficult, exhausting one for me. I started as the favorite and felt all the pressure. I had a lot of pressure on my shoulders, but I have put on this great show, so I am happy,” he added.
Two days previous, 31-year-old Nibali was fourth, 4 minutes, 43 seconds off the lead, but he went on the attack in the high mountains in what was always likely to provide the most decisive stages of the race.
He won Friday’s 19th stage as then-leader Steven Kruijswijk’s hopes disintegrated when he crashed on a fast descent, breaking a rib in the process.
It left Chaves in the pink jersey with a 44 second lead to defend, but once Niabli went on the attack with 15km left, Chaves could not respond.
“I am satisfied with my Giro. If someone had told me three years ago I would be on the Giro podium, I would not have believed it,” said Chaves, 26, who was fifth at last year’s Vuelta a Espana. “I gave my all, but Vincenzo was simply stronger than me.”
Even with compatriot Rigoberto Uran helping him, despite not riding for the same team, Chaves could not hold onto his lead and finished the day 52 seconds behind Nibali.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier