Present in the Gazzetta dello sport headquarters in Milan, Vincenzo Nibali revealed that doping cases of Valentin and Maxi Iglinskiy were taken very badly by the Astana team. He also commented on a possibility of sharing a leadership at the Kazakh squad with Fabio Aru in the Italian Grand tour in order to tackle a difficult Giro-Tour double and Oleg Tinkov’s idea to participate in all three-week events.

“It’s been taken very badly. You know how I think about doping. Anyone who tries to be clever like that is an imbecile,” Nibali told Gazzetta dello Sport. “Will there be consequences for Astana’s WorldTour licence? I don’t know.”

Unsirprisingly, Nibali admitted that defending his 2014 Tour de France title will be his biggest objective for 2016, but hasn’t completely ruled out a possibility of participating in the Giro along with his fellow team mate and countryman Aru.

“I would really like that a lot and to ride it as a protagonist,” Nibali said of the prospect of riding next year’s Giro. “I would come to win it, and then afterwards I’d think about the Tour. It would be a choice made with the heart. But as you know, there’s Fabio Aru in the team too. He wants space and the team believes a lot in him.”

“I could do the Giro, and I’ve already hinted that to Vinokourov. You can discuss things well with him face to face, in Italian, even if sometimes he can change idea. His answer was that Aru is there, and our sponsors like him a lot. At the end of November we’ll discuss the situation.”

The Tour de France winner insisted that he wouldn’t mind sharing team leadership with younger Italian or even riding in his support. Aru spoke equally enthusiastically about riding the next edition of the Giro d’Italia along with Nibali at the race official presentation and emphasized that it would have a positive impact on Italian cycling.  

“We’d need to see what our condition was, and be good and not argue. It’s a matter that would be decided between us, the team car would stay out of it. Work for him? Why not, if the race plays out in a certain way.”

When it comes to Oleg Tinkov’s lucrative proposal to tackle the grand triple, Astana captain wasn’t equally positive about the idea.

“You feel each of those races in your legs and your head, they stay with you,” Nibali said. “You’d have to wipe out everything else, like Tirreno-Adriatico and the Classics… It would be race-training camp, race-training camp, race-training camp – in short, you’d be cut off from the world. And what about your family? Where does it end?”