“You narrow minded, selfish moron” – Matt Brammeier criticises Vincenzo Nibali

Multiple Irish champion Matt Brammeier has taken to Twitter to voice his disapproval of Vincenzo Nibali and his team’s suggestion that he may skip the Giro d’Italia and ride the Tour de France due to the introduction of the new UCI Extreme Weather Protocol and the chance that some big mountain stages in the Giro could be cancelled if the weather is poor.

Following on from the cancellation of a stage of Tirreno-Adriatico last week due to snow, Nibali’s Astana team confirmed that the Italian may now target the Tour de France instead of the Giro d’Italia.

“We’ll evaluate the idea of Vincenzo riding the Tour instead of the Giro,” Astana’s coach Paolo Slongo told Cyclingnews. “We planned that Aru would target the Tour this year but it wouldn’t be a problem having Vincenzo at the Tour too. It’s something we’ll look at.

“Vincenzo is great climber and it’s not fair that he targets the Giro, and then the mountain stages are possibly taken out of the race. What has happened at Tirreno-Adriatico could happen in the Giro, and that would compromise all our work and our goals for the season. It would also compromise the Giro. That could be a reason to study and so eventually our plans for the season.”

Brammeier then posted a link to the article on Twitter with the message: “Better you stay home & skip the whole season you narrow minded, selfish moron.”

He has since received support from fellow professionals with the likes of Peter Sagan and Marcel Kittel approving the decision to cancel the stage and Tony Martin of Etixx-Quick Step tweeting: “Matt, you’re a legend! I couldn’t say it better!”