Nibali wins  2016 Giro d Italia

Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) secured victory at the 99th Giro d’Italia after finishing safely on the final stage of the race into Turin.

Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo) almost ended a string of near misses with a stage victory at the Giro d’Italia on the final day of the 2016 edition in Turin, however, officials later disqualified the Italian for irregular sprinting, giving Nikias Arndt (Giant-Alpecin) the stage win.

After the frustrating near-miss in Cassano d’Adda on Wednesday, Nizzolo had one final shot at victory in today’s final stage in Turin and he was in a determined mood right from the start. Having virtually secured the points jersey by winning the first intermediate sprint, he could turn his attention to the stage win and he used his team to bring back the many attackers on what proved to be a tricky, technical circuit that was made even more treacherous by slippery roads.

Despite having used all his teammate to control the race, Nizzolo seemed to finally have got that elusive win as he turned out to the fastest when a small group arrived at the line. Launching from far back, he managed to pass Nikias Arndt and hold off the German, Matteo Trentin and a visibly frustrated Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida).

However, Modolo launched an appeal as he had been boxed in towards the barrier and so had no chance to launch his sprint. After a long wait that postponed the podium ceremony significantly, the commissaires decided to relegate Nizzolo and so it was Arndt who got his first grand tour stage win in controversial fashion.

Meanwhile, Vincenzo Nibali was slowly rolling to the finish. The wet conditions had prompted the organizers to stop the clock at the first passage of the line and when a big crash involving the likes of Esteban Chaves and Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale) split the field, most riders opted for safety. Nibali did so too and arrived at the finish in a second group, raising his arms to celebrate his second Giro race after one of the greatest grand tour comebacks in recent history.

Giro d’Italia 2016 – stage 21 results (Cuneo – Torino):

1 Nikias Arndt (Giant-Alpecin) 3:48:18
2 Matteo Trentin (Etixx – Quick-Step) st
3 Sacha Modolo (Lampre – Merida) st
4 Alexander Porsev (Katusha) st
5 Sean De Bie (Lotto Soudal) st
6 Ivan Savitskiy (Gazprom-Rusvelo) st
7 Rick Zabel (BMC) st
8 Eduard Grosu (Nippo – Vini Fantini) st
9 Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff) st
10 Alberto Bettiol (Cannondale) st

Final general classification:

1 Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) 82:44:31
2 Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) +52”
3 Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) +01’17”
4 Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNl-Jumbo) +01’50”
5 Rafal Majka (Tinkoff) +04’37”
6 Bob Jungels (Etixx – Quick-Step) +08’31”
 Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale) +11’47”
8 Andrey Amador (Movistar) +13’21”
9 Darwin Atapuma (BMC) +14’09”
10 Kanstantsin Siutsou (Dimension Data) +16’20”