Vincenzo Nibali knows challenges in Tour de France remain uphill

BESANCON, FRANCE // Vincenzo Nibali already has a decent set of Tour de France leader’s yellow jerseys, but he has set one aside for Marco Pantani’s mother.

Should he prevail on the French roads, Nibali would become the first Italian rider to win the race since the late Pantani, the 1998 winner who died of a cocaine overdose 10 years ago.

“In spite of what happened to him, I would be very proud to succeed Pantani,” Nibali said Tuesday, during the first mandated rest day.

He leads with a 2 minute, 23 second advantage over Australian Richie Porte.

Spain’s Alejandro Valverde is third, 2:47 off the pace, after compatriot Alberto Contador, twice a Tour winner, crashed out of the race on Monday.

“Pantani’s mother had offered me one of his yellow jerseys, so if I win this Tour, I will bring one of my yellow jerseys to her,” Nibali said.

The Italian, a great connoisseur of his sport’s history (“I can talk to you about Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi, but also about Bernard Hinault and Louison Bobet,” he said), knows that the road to Paris is treacherous.

Although the Astana rider said the hardest stage was Monday’s trek to La Planche des Belles Filles, which he won to reclaim the yellow jersey, several traps lie ahead.

“The Tour seems easy now, but it’s when everything looks easy that it becomes the most difficult. There are several riders who lie in wait,” Nibali said, citing Valverde and Porte.

Frenchmen Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot are fourth and sixth, respectively, with a credible chance of a podium finish, Nibali said.

“We saw it with [Michal] Kwiatkowski yesterday, he went from afar and quickly opened a four-minute gap,” Nibali said.

“We will not make the mistake of underestimating anyone. I made that mistake once, it was in the Vuelta last year, and [Chris] Horner won.”

His quest to become the sixth man to win all three grand tours continues today with the 11th stage, a 187.5-kilometre ride to Oyonnax featuring four short-categorised climbs in the last 50 kilometres.

Only Frenchmen Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil, Contador, Belgian Eddy Merckx and fellow Italian Felice Gimondi have won the Tour, the Vuelta and the Giro.