Nibali on cycling in the doping era: "I never used but I was watched, and they broke into my car"

Nibali's list of achievements speaks for itself: two overall victories in the Giro d'Italia (2013 and 2016), one overall victory in the Tour de France (2014) and one overall victory in the Vuelta a España (2010). The Shark of the Strait won three more Monuments with Milan-Sanremo (2019) and the Tour of Lombardy (2015 and 2017) and finished on the podium in seven other major tours. And that despite his troubled childhood. "I threw stones through windows and blew up letterboxes with fireworks. Messina was a mafia town; I had classmates who came to school with guns."

His father quickly put him on a bike, and in 2005, at 21, he turned professional with Fassa Bortolo. Between 2006 and 2012, he made a name for himself with Liquigas (including a Vuelta victory), but when he moved to Astana in 2013, his greatest successes followed. However, cycling was plagued by doping, especially in his early years as a professional. "My parents always said: if people force you to make the wrong choices, come back home. You can always work with us. There was a lot of talk about doping in those years, but my parents' words helped me find the right path."

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The problems of his turbulent childhood, the pressure to dope, and Messina full of expectations: Nibali did not necessarily enjoy winning for a long time. "I considered it normal. I always lived with the handbrake on, except on my bike. I said very little for a long time, and even under great pressure, I did not make any statements. Now I realize what a bubble I was living in; I only thought about cycling. Winning the Tour de France in 2014 was the greatest joy of my career, followed by a hellish year. I was so popular that I was attacked on the street while walking with the stroller."

He learned to live with it, just as he did with the knowledge that doping was used in the peloton. "I never asked myself how much I lost because of doping, but it was probably a lot. In the 2010 Vuelta, I was riding against a certain Spaniard, Mosquera, who was later banned. What if he had won and they hadn't known about it? I rode for leaders who went into races as if it were war. For that generation, it was cultural: if you didn't use, you didn't participate."

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"The next generation changed that way of thinking. If cycling is clean today, it's also thanks to us," says Nibali, who claims he never even considered doping. Yet he was often under suspicion. "I won, I was Italian, and my team, Astana, was led by Alexandre Vinokourov, who had a questionable past. I was watched; they broke into my car and checked my phone."

"I'm sure they also broke into my house at some point, looking for evidence that wasn't there," he continues. Nibali had learned to live with it, perhaps because of his childhood. But many riders were destroyed by it. "Cyclists were an easy target, but I have never used drugs or doping in my life; I have never even thought about it. They have tested me a million times and can test all those samples again for another hundred years."