Nibali as "Flander's finest"?

That the recently announced route of the 2014 Tour de France should suit Nibali well does not come as a surprise. A series of high gradient climbs, narrow roads and tricky descents, should provide the Sicilian with ideal hunting grounds for his attempt at the Tour de Francy trophy.

"It's a good Tour for Vincenzo," team manager Martinelli told Gazzetta dello Sport.

"There are stages with hard climbs that are largely unknown and its been years that the Tour has not done them all in the same edition of the race. It will be important to know the roads but there is no point in going crazy with the reconnaissance. It is good for us that there is only 54km of time trialing because that is where we loose out to Froome a little bit."

"The only bad thing about the Tour is the pavé, even if we expected it," Martinelli said.

And this is where the surprising bit appears. The announcement that Nibali might ride the Tour of Flanders is especially startling becuase the Flanders has not exactly been overrun with GC aspirants. In fact it has not been won by a non-classics specialist since Mercxx (who arguably, was a specialist in just about anything) in 1975, and the last time a GC guy raced to compete was Armstrong (who arguably, may not have been a specialist at anything) in 2010.

"The stage will make us consider a new strategy and different choices when it comes to our preparation. Training on the cobbles does not make much sense because racing is so different to training. Paris-Roubaix is too extreme for Vincenzo but perhaps it's worth riding the Tour of Flanders,” Martinelli added.

"Vincenzo has to learn how to ride on those kind of roads. Because of the climbs in the Tour of Flanders, we could also bring home a good result."

With Nibali’s former results in the classics it will be interesting to see how he will impact the Tour of Flanders 2014. Especially as his previous classics results are not exactly bad, with four top ten placings in the Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Milano-San Remo, and a number of victories in smaller one-day races. Additionally Nibali is known to maintain a high level all season, and may just be the rider to produce a surprise at “Flander’s finest”.