It’s definitely hard to assess Vincenzo Nibali’s 2014 season, as the Astana captain timed his disposition perfectly to reach his greatest objective ad become an absolutely deserved winner of the Tour de France with four stage victories, but apart from that he performed below expectations in almost every event he lined-up at. Nonetheless, fatigued by more and less official duties he was forced to pay as la Grande Boucle champion and two crashed he sustained in September, the 29-year old Italian looks to put the end to his season in the Tour of Almaty.

Clearly fatigued, Nibali admitted that he will race in the small Kazakh event next week only to pay respect to his team and their sponsors, however, he considers his season as officially concluded.

“My season ends here,” team Astana’s Italian said according to Cycling Weekly. “I’ll go to Almaty only because my team asked me to do so.”

Nibali was regarded a dark horse coming into the World Championship road race as the undulating route around Ponferrada suited him down to the ground. However, even before the event kicked off the 29-year old Italian claimed to be away from his best and sore following his crash at the Tre Valli Varesine.

The Astana captain hit the deck once again in the opening part of Sunday’s event what prevented him from contesting the final battle for the rainbow jersey. Known as one of the best descenders in the professional peloton, Nibali praised tactics implemented by the eventual winner Michał Kwiatkowski, claiming that he would like to do it the same way, had he not crashed earlier in the event.

“I couldn’t avoid crashing, the others fell in front of me. All and all, I didn’t come off too badly, but I had to change my bike twice afterwards. That wasn’t easy on such a fast race,” Nibali said.

“Michal Kwiatkowski pulled off a good move with his attack on the descent. I would’ve liked to have done the same thing but I was shaken after the crash and didn’t feel that comfortable on my bike. Honestly, I was afraid I’d crash again.”