Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo) returned to racing Sunday in the Digital Swiss 5 race. The Italian, who finished fourth in Paris-Nice, failed to finish in the top 10 behind winner Rohan Dennis (Team Ineos) in the power-packed virtual race. He was interviewed this weekend on former Italian pro Rafale Ferrara's Instagram Live (opens in new tab) show, where he recounted one fateful day that elevated his public image.

"Do you know how I put a blue check on all my social media accounts? Nibali asked on the show, pointing to the symbols indicating that the accounts were verified."

"The team car got towed by being thrown out of Vuelta España.

Speaking from his home in Lugano, Nibali defended that it was not his fault; in one of the most controversial moments of the 2015 season, Nibali was seen clinging to the team car on stage 2 as he tried to get back to the peloton after the crash. This was an important stage with a short uphill finish, and Nibali's then Astana team had lost 30 seconds in the team time trial in the season opener.

The crash with more than 30 km to go was fatal, and it took a long time before Nibali could get a replacement bike. Nibali worked with some of his teammates and tried to catch up. However, when his teammates ran out of energy, he found himself in a group with no one to help him. With 16 km to go, the group was 35 seconds behind the leader when Alexandre Scheffer arrived in his team car.

"Scheffer came into the room and apologized, but I was out of the race," Nibali said.

"As you know, I broke my bike and was late. On the way back I lost my bidon on a bump and the jury told me not to slipstream. DS (Scheffer) from Kazakhstan joined me and gave me more water bottles, but he pulled me very hard and I was in danger of falling to the bottom of the valley. There was a helicopter overhead and it went all over the world.

Nibali eventually reached the lead group at the bottom of the climb, but lost 1:28 in the chase effort. Footage of his turbo bottle went viral on social media, and despite his team's pleas for a simple time penalty, the decision was made to ban the Italian from the Vuelta.

"I learned of my disqualification when I was having a massage with Parini back at the hotel.

Although he apologized, Nibali says he was butchered by "endless jokes."

"I returned home angry, trained like a beast, and won every race after that except one (Coppa Agostoni), which I lost to Rebellin. It was like an airplane."

Nibali won the Coppa Bernocchi, Tre Valle Varesine, and Il Lombardia that fall.