After a second place in Coppa Agostoni and a win in Coppa Bernocchi, Vincenzo Nibali was third in Memorial Marco Pantani as part of the clean sweep of the podium from the Italian national team.

"Honestly I did not think to do the race today because we had a different goal , to try to get a final sprint. The race, however, was made hard and we forced the pace in the last lap. We were three and we almost did a time trial to get here . We resisted the return of the group, it was not easy and in the end Diego won," he told CyclingPro.net.

"Diego deserved this for the period that he has gone through, it was not easy [he lost a son due to a miscarriage, ed.]. We did a good performance because the speed was still very high.

"Let's see how the legs respond tomorrow. In these races I have used a lot of energy so we will see what to do tomorrow. We will see in the race to give a correct interpretation."