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 The 29-year-old Italian, as soft-spoken in life as aggressive as
he is on the bike, joined Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard
Hinault, Alberto Contador and his compatriot Felice Gimondi as
winners of all three grands tours.
The son of Giovanna and Salvatore, who own a movie rental shop,
Nibali quickly realized riding his bike around the local streets
would not be enough to emulate Gimondi.
"With my father, we would watch videos of Merckx, Gimondi, Sarroni,
Moser," the humble Nibali said.
"But I can also talk about Hinault, Bobet. I know their story."
In a region where family ties are like glue, leaving home could have
been a heart-breaking move, but Nibali learned to love his
independence.
He moved from Messina to Tuscany to ride at junior level under the
guidance of sports director Carlo Franceschi in the Mastromarco
team. Nibali, who lived at Franceschi's home, quickly impressed,
taking third place in the junior time trial world championships in
2002 and third again in the Under-23 world championships.
But just like Contador, he is not one to be content with second or
third. The chisel-featured Nibali is an attacker and he long paid a
heavy price for it.
 In the 2011 Tour of Lombardy, one of the most prestigious one-day
races, he attacked in the descent of the Madonna del Ghisallo, some
50 kilometers from the finish.
He was caught, but the move was as bold as it was brilliant. In
2012, he was the only rider to attack a dominant Team Sky in the
mountains.
He never managed to break the British outfit's stranglehold on the
race, but that is how Nibali rides.
On this year's Tour, he took the yellow jersey in the second stage
after a late attack caught his rivals cold in Sheffield. This time,
he was not caught.
Instead of playing it conservatively, Nibali was on the attack on
all terrains, distancing Contador in the pouring rain on the
treacherous cobbled stage to Arenberg as Britain's defending
champion Chris Froome crashed out.
After Contador was also forced out following a crash in a descent on
stage 10, the Astana rider's lead was not to be threatened, yet the
'Shark of Messina' attacked again in the mountains, taking his
fourth stage win at the top of Hautacam, a mystic pass draped in
eerie fog.
MYTH AND DISENCHANTMENT
In a sport that was long marred by doping scandals, however, myth
has often been mixed with disenchantment.
Nibali is no exception to the habit of making Tour de France
champions prime suspects. Bradley Wiggins and Froome, in the wake of
the Lance Armstrong scandal, faced repeated grillings over their
ethics.
Nibali, the first Italian to win the Tour since the late Maro
Pantani in 1998, inevitably had to answer doping-related questions
as comparisons were drawn with his disgraced compatriot who was
known as "the Pirate".
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"It's hard to make a comparison between what Pantani did so many
years ago and what I've done now because Marco won his Tour in the
last week, while it was the opposite for me," Nibali said.
"I took the jersey after two days, I don't know what to say."
He will visit Pantani's mother to give her one of his yellow jerseys
because he admired her son.
"I loved his bravery," he said.
Nibali chose to leave his Liquigas team to work at Astana with
manager Alexandre Vinokourov, who served a two-year ban for blood
doping on the 2007 Tour de France.
"Astana is a team who invested a lot in an Italian group, precisely
because they wanted to give it credibility and because they wanted
to change their image," said Nibali.
"They didn't just choose me, they also brought in (coach) Paolo
Slongo. Let me remind everyone that I worked with him when I was 17
in the national team, together with Antonio Fusi."
Nibali did not wait to be questioned on the Tour to speak out
against doping.
Eight years ago, he said that dopers should be locked up and this
year, after former team mate Danilo Di Luca said that it was
impossible to win a grand tour without doping, he commented: "I can
only think that he has become a bit brain-damaged."
On Saturday, after his fourth place in the final time trial
effectively secured his Tour title, Nibali was questioned again.
"It is true that in 2008, I felt a bit sad and disappointed. I
wanted the white jersey (for the best Under-25 rider). But a lot of
progress has been made and we can see the results now," said Nibali.
"If there had not been all these controls, targeted controls, the
biological passport, maybe I would not be here."
(Editing by Ed Osmond)
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