RAI television's coverage of the Giro d'Italia is punctuated at regular intervals by an advert for Continental tyres starring Vincenzo Nibali, first behind the wheel of a car and then aboard a bike. "To see an Italian attack on a climb, you have to wait for the ad with Nibali," was the lament of one local wit on social media last week.
In the days since, Antonio Tiberi has given lie to that assertion, first with a pair of accelerations atop Prati di Tivo and then with another brace of efforts on the final haul up to Bocca di Selva on stage 10.
Still only 22, the Italian approaches the midpoint of his Giro d'Italia debut in sixth place overall, 4:27 down on Tadej Pogačar, and appreciation for his efforts has slowly begun to amplify across the local press in recent days.
Nibali, inevitably, has been called upon to help drum up some interest in the emerging talent from more casual Giro observers. On Tuesday morning, a two-page spread in La Gazzetta dello Sport about the Bahrain Victorious rider was entitled: "Tiberi is good enough for the podium, Nibali guarantees."
During his Giro career, of course, Nibali was always a garanzia in May, and it is far too soon to say if Tiberi can ever scale such heights. "Don't say that Tiberi is the new Nibali," Lo Squalo pleaded on Tuesday. "Say that he's a new Tiberi, that's a good story, too."
Tiberi, for his part, has been doing his bit to write his name into the story of this Giro. In the finale of stage 10, his Bahrain Victorious team took over the pace-making in the pink jersey group from Pogačar's UAE Team Emirates guard, with Damiano Caruso laying the groundwork for Tiberi's twin accelerations.
The Italian was reeled back in each time, and he coughed up a few seconds to Pogačar in the final dash for the line. Then again, his target was not the maglia rosa, which is far beyond his reach. Instead, he has eyes on the white jersey worn by Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike), and he clawed back 9 seconds on the Belgian in the finale here. In the overall standings, he is now just a dozen seconds behind Uijtdebroeks.
"Today we had the feeling that we're in the race too and that we can have our say and do something," Tiberi said beyond the finish line. "I don't like to sit there anonymously and do nothing. I only do that when I don't have super legs, but when I feel good, I always want to show something.
"Damiano did a really good rhythm, and then I tried to make a few accelerations to see how my rivals' legs were. Unfortunately, like at Prati di Tivo, the gradients weren't excessive, so you could sit on the wheels pretty easily, and I wasn't able to make much of a difference.
"After making those efforts, I probably paid a bit in the sprint. I lost some ground to the podium contenders there, but I still gained a bit on the white jersey, so all told it was a positive day, above all because I managed to show myself and shake up the final a bit. That's always nice."
"Tiberi is the only rider that so far showed some balls"
Tiberi has found an admirer in Pogačar, who had snuffed out his attacks at Prati di Tivo and who was the first to track his effort here. "Tiberi is the only rider that so far showed some balls," Pogačar said after the podium ceremony. "I admire him that he showed courage, and I wish him good legs."
Last year, Tiberi made headlines only for the most unsavoury incident that precipitated his mid-season departure from Trek. The team initially suspended him when it was reported in March that he had been prosecuted for killing a cat with an air rifle in his adopted home of San Marino. Two months later, after an ill-advised appearance on the Italian satirical television show Le Iene, Trek terminated Tiberi's contract altogether, and he moved to the Bahrain Victorious team in June.
With his new team, the Frosinone native would go on to place 18th overall at the Vuelta a España, and his build-up to this year's Giro included promising displays at the Volta a Catalunya, where he placed 8th overall and at the Tour of the Alps, where he finished third. The Giro, however, represents a very different test, not least because he set out from Turin as co-leader of his team, and Tiberi confessed on Tuesday that he had felt under pressure before the race got underway.
"A little bit, yes," Tiberi said. "It's always nice to show yourself, especially for a young Italian rider, and it's always nice to put on a bit of a show at home."
It remains to be seen how high Tiberi can climb in this Giro, and indeed, whether he can one day be the man to end Italy's longest-ever run without an overall victory at the Giro, a drought that now stretches back eight years to Nibali's second triumph in 2016. Nibali, who raced alongside Tiberi at Trek, sounded an upbeat note about the youngster's long-term prospects.
"I finished on the podium of the Giro for the first time when I was 25, in 2010," Nibali said. "Antonio is in the running to do that while he's still under-23. He's ahead of schedule, I would say…"
