Nibali and doping which was “something usual”

Mathieu Warnier, media365: published on Sunday May 04, 2025 at 3.30 p.m.

Retired from the professional peloton for two years now, Vincenzo Nibali said he had never been tempted by the use of doping during his sports career even if his teammates could have the feeling that it was normal.

Doping is a scourge that has gangrenous cycling for many years. And its shadow remains nevertheless heavy in the face of the current performance of the leading runners, causing suspicion. This is particularly what Tadej Pogacar must manage, which has been almost everything in its path since the start of the 2024 season. At the heart of the peloton for 18 years, between 2005 and 2022, Vincenzo Nibali witnessed these drifts. On the occasion of an interview recently granted on a daily basis La Gazzetta dello Sportthe former Transalpine runner conceded that “doping was something usual for this generation”, adding that some of his teammates “went to races as we go to war”, with the idea that all blows could be allowed to shine. Winner of each of the three large towers, the “Messina shark” nevertheless refuted any idea that the use of prohibited product could be imposed on him.

Nibali: “The next generation has changed mentalities”

“If you didn’t want to, you didn’t boost yourself,” he added, saying that he had “never doped in (his) life” and “even never thought to do it”. “I have been checked a million times, they can test test pieces in a hundred years,” said Vincenzo Nibali. The former Italian champion did not hide that certain factors have been able to cause greater mistrust concerning him. “I won, I was Italian and the boss of my team, Alexandre Vinokourov, had an ambiguous past like other managers,” he summed up. I was followed, they searched my car and checked my phone, and I’m sure they also searched my house to find evidence that did not exist. As for the evolution of cycling, Vincenzo Nibali is confident to the idea that the discipline has driven out his old demons. “The next generation has changed mentalities and if today cycling is clean, I think it is also thanks to us,” he concluded. Words that could be insufficient to dispel doubts.