When the Giro d'Italia closed on a gray afternoon in Milan last October, the glass was neither half full nor half empty, said Vincenzo Nibali. "It was just the halfway point." You just have to accept what comes."

Nibali eventually finished seventh, breaking his record of six consecutive podium finishes at Corsarosa. Meanwhile, his juniors of more than a decade, Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers), Jai Hindley (Team DSM), and João Almeida (Dečuninck-Quick Step), were in Italy, while Tadej Pogachar (UAE Team Emirates) The success in the Tour de France seemed to signal a change of guard in the Grand Tours.

But amidst the disappointment, there was a ray of solace. Trek-Segafredo coach Paolo Slongo insisted that the rider's power data was still on par with his prime, and Nibali admitted that limited racing after the season was interrupted by a coronavirus outbreak had affected his preparation. The short, sharp corrective campaign that followed was unsuitable for the men in their fourth year.

"For the younger guys, it's much simpler. When I was ten years younger, I could quickly improve my conditioning. But as you get older, it gets a little more complicated. We're used to routine work," Nibali said of his plans for the 2021 season.

"During the months of the pandemic I was still able to train, but I was training in the dark a little bit. When I resumed, I thought things were going well, but they were not. From the first race I had to follow, and I had to follow for most of the rest of the season.

"I wasn't motivated, especially in the last week, but I still finished the Giro in the top 10. That wasn't my goal, but it wasn't a bad result considering the season."

Trek-Segafredo's hopeless chase at Il Lombardia was a microcosm of his season.

With the Giro d'Italia once again on his target, Nibali will head to the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics via the Tour de France, but vowed to approach the early part of the campaign in a different way. Instead of moving systematically with only the Giro in mind, he intends to make an early impression at the Valenciana Volta, Algarve Volta, and Tirreno-Adriatico. The goal, it seems, is not simply to build form, but to boost morale.

"I will work on it one day at a time, one race at a time; I didn't want to focus on only one objective, so that's what I decided," Nibali said.

Nibali has won five races in the second half of his career, including two Monument wins and three Grand Tour stage wins.

"My motivation is always to raise my arms with victories. During my career I have had some great successes, but I have also had some low-key seasons. Last year may have been one of them, but it could be a starting point for this year."

Nibali will attempt to hold the Giro and Tour simultaneously for the fourth time in his career. Nibali, who was named to Trek-Segafredo's strong team for the Giro with Bauke Mollema and Giulio Ciccone, will prepare for the Tokyo Olympics at the Tour.

"It's an important goal, and it only happens every four years, or maybe this time every five years. It's a great dream to win the Olympics, but it's not easy," Nibali said. With only five days between the Champs-Elysées and the men's road race, we still don't know if we can make it to Paris due to Olympic quarantine restrictions." I have done so in the past, but this time, due to the COVID-19 protocol, I don't know if I will be able to ride the entire Tour."

Nibali admitted that this will "obviously" be his last attempt at the Olympics -- he fell in Rio 2016 with the gold medal nearly in hand -- but made no mention of ending his career when speaking to the Italian press early Tuesday. 'I haven't set a clear deadline,' he said. It depends on the results of this season."

It's now or never this year, when a coronavirus pandemic is likely to bring more uncertainty to the calendar.

"Let's hope it's not like 2020," Nibali said. Nibali said, "But it really helped me understand how to plan for a similar situation."