Nibali at the Andalucía Bike Race: the Strait Shark at the start

Let me be clear: Vincenzo Nibali has no intention of aiming for the Paris 2024 Games on mountain bikes like his friend Peter Sagan (announcement on Thursday from the Vuelta San Juan). But the Shark, who retired from road racing at Lombardia 2022 and who is now a consultant to the newborn Q36.5 team (recently also invited to Roubaix), had made no secret of wanting to do a few more mountain bike races ( as in Capoliveri, Elba Island, the week after Lombardy). And with his former teammate and national tricolor Ivan Santaromita he began preparation for the mythical and grueling Cape Epic in South Africa, from March 19 (8 days, 685 km, almost 16,000 meters in altitude). In this sense, Nibali and Santaromita have planned to participate as competitive training and preparation for the Andalucìa Bike Race, a Spanish competition also in mtb scheduled from 27 February to 4 March.