Vincenzo Nibali dominated the race since it started three weeks ago and became the first Italian to win Tour de France since Marco Pantani in 1998, the Star Tribune reported.

Both 1998 and 2014 Tour de France races took place in rain and cold. Pantani's win at Les Deux Alpes and Nibali's ride through northern France, with his team-mate Lieuwe Westra's help, might well have won him the Tour even if Alberto Contador and Chris Froome had finished the race.

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Chris Froome, the defending champion from Great Britain, quit early on in the three-week race after crashing three times. Alberto Contador hit a sinkhole and broke his leg, according to the New York Times.

Two years after Pantani's win in 1998N, Nibali, who was 15 at the time, joined the same amateur team, Monsummanese Grassi Mapei. As with other Sicilians, he felt he had no choice but to emigrate to make it, according to the Guardian.

"There were no races in the south, no money, not much knowledge, and my father had to drive hundreds of kilometers to take me to races," Nibali said.

Nibali is anti-doping. His success is attributed to intense focus from the very beginning of the race and strategic attacks that enabled him to gain seconds on his opponents, according to the Star Tribune.

The team's boss Alexander Vinokourov was once banned for doping. When asked about this Nibali simply said that Vinokourov has served his time and he was brought in to help change the team's image, according to the Guardian.

Nibali won all four stages of the tour. Three of them were in the mountain ranges: The Vosges, the Alps and the Pyrenees. He wore the Astana team yellow race leader's jersey 19 of the 21 stages.

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