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Published on Saturday, 02 May 2015 01:23

Giro D'Italia St 1

San Lorenzo Al Mare to San Remo

Saturday 9th May, 17.8kms

The first stage of the 2015 Giro D'Italia kicks the race off with a Team Time Trial, like it did in Belfast last year. This time though they are back on home soil with a 17.8km jaunt along the coast which takes in a section of the 'Cicliabile Riviera Dei Fiori', a tourist bike path that runs along the old coastal route of the Italian State Railways between San Lorenzo Al Mare and San Remo. 

This part of the world is famous for the run in to San Remo of the Milan-San-Remo Monument, but they don't travel this road on the way to San Remo! Instead, they head up in to the hills to take on the Poggio, this stage starts at the foot of the legendary climb. Last year's Team Time Trial in Belfast was packed with drama, not least with the big crash of the Garmin Sharp squad which took Dan Martin out of the race before he even had a chance to ride in to Dublin in front of his fans. Orica GreenEdge won last year from Etixx-QS and BMC. 

The Route

Not much to say about it in terms of difficulty and descriptions, They start in San Lorenzo, ride through a short tunnel not long after the start, then hit the Cicliabile 'Riviera Dei Fiori' after around 4.5kms, which takes them past the split time check spot at Arma di Taggia after 9.9kms. The Cicliabile finishes with about 1.7kms to go to the the finish in San Remo and it's a fast run in to the finish from there. The course if almost dead flat and quite straight, there are hardly any sharp bends to negotiate, so it should be pretty safe and probably very fast. I say it should be safe, but it's quite narrow in parts (it is a bike path after all) and one mistake could be very costly.

A lot could depend on the prevailing winds at the time, there could be a strong wind whip in from the sea here that could either be a tail-wind and make it very fast, a head-wind which will make it more difficult, or a cross-wind which could make it quite tricky. The latest forecast is for it to be a lot more pleasant than the rainy conditions in Belfast last year, it should be sunny with temperature reaching around 18 degrees. There will be a slight wind coming from the south-west, meaning it will be cross/head-wind which shouldn't be too much of a problem but should favour the big and strong teams a bit more than the lighter guys. 

Giro d'Italia 2015: Presentazione Tappa 1...by giroditalia

The Favourites

Team Time Trials are always fascinating to watch and getting a good start here can matter more from the pyschological point of view than what the time gaps might mean at the end of the three weeks. For someone like Porte to gain 10-20" on the likes of Aru and Contador will see him start with a bit more spring in his step on the second stage. For the puncheurs with their eyes on the Maglia Rosa it will be all about trying not to lose too much time in an effort to take the jersey in the coming stages.

Orica GreenEdge won this event quite comfortably last year by 5" from E-QS and 7" from BMC, with the fourth placed team, Tinkoff-Saxo 23" back. They come here to win this stage, they have made no secret about it, and are full of confidence to do so. They have five of the squad who won last year - Durbridge, Matthews, Hepburn, Weening and Lancaster. In come Gerrans, Clarke, Bewley and Chaves, four pretty strong guys too, but as only 5 riders are counted towards the winning time they can afford to shed a few by the finish. 

A flat, smooth course like this should see them really power along and I think they are going to be very hard to beat. The question is though are they worth backing at odds on? Best price 4/5 with Corals, they're 4/6 with 365 and PP. One thing I've been thinking a bit about is who will they put across the line first (if they win!) - last year they let Svein Tuft take the Maglia Rosa on his birthday. He could have done the same this year only he was taken out in a crash in Romandie. We got to see a lot more of him in agony at the side of the road than should have been the case because of the door-slamming of Tinkoff-Saxo's Jesper Hansen.. One tactic they could try is to let Gerrans take it - it would be a confidence booster after the year he has had so far and also could take the attention off of Matthews in some of the stages to come as rivals will be drawn to mark the Maglia Rosa instead.. 

We'll let's look at the opposition. Second favourites are Team Sky at 6/1 best price with PP, Betvictor go just 4/1, looks like the BV compiler fancies Sky a bit more than the PP guy. Sky also have a pretty decent squad here with Porte, Kiryienka, Eisel, König and Siutsou - five big engines, Viviani can go well over a shorter distance, as a lot of sprinters can and they're backed up by Henao, Nieve and Puccio, slightly weaker guys who they can afford to drop near the end.

Sky have one up on OGE of course, just last week beating them by 0.63" in Romandie. These are two very different looking squads though, with OGE definitely having the better looking team this time. I still think though that they will be the ones to run OGE the closest, Porte will have them fired up for this and they do look powerful. I think an e/w bet on them should pay dividends.

Tinkoff-Saxo shouldn't be underestimated though as they have a pretty powerful squad here too. Contador will want to push this as hard as he can as he knows he can take it easy for a few days after this. Rogers, Kreuziger, Boaro, Juul-Jensen and Paulinho are strong guys who could power along this course, if it had a few hills in it they'd probably do a lot better. They were way down in 14th place in Romandie but Juul-Jensen is the only man from that team to appear here and it was a team of climbers rather than TTers.

4th last year, but 16" off the podium and 23" off the winners, I think they will be something similar this year, maybe 20" off OGE and 15" behind Sky. Will that be good enough to take 3rd though at a tempting looking 16/1 with Betfred? They are only 5/1 with William Hill!

What about the Russian Rockets, Team Katusha? They are certainly on form at the moment and have a team full of strong men. Zakarin will want a good start to the race and is clearly time-trialling very well at the moment, as his near-defeat of Tony Martin in Romandie showed. He is joined by Russian TT champion Anton Vorobyev and five others who were in the team that came 3rd in the Romandie TTT a week ago. Silin and Spilak are replaced by Vorobyev, Paolini and Lagutin, three very experienced guys. It's a very different team to the one that was awful in the TTT last year, finishing 19th, 1'33" behind OGE, with only Paolini and Belkov returning. I think they might struggle more than their 3rd favourites position suggests, I'm not interested in the 8/1 on them.

BMC often go very well in Team Time Trials, they are world TTT champions after all.. 3rd in the TTT in Belfast last year, 7" behind OGE, the team is a very different one though with only Brent Bookwalter returning from the nine guys who started last year, with none of the Worlds winning team here either. Bookwalter, Kung, Burghardt and Moinard can power along, Gilbert too for a while, but overall they look a level below some of those above, and that's reflected in the 20/1 price on them.

I'm sure Gilbert will be keen to stay within reaching distance of the Pink Jersey with the stages to come, but I think he's going to lose 20"+. A sad note to add to this is that Darwin Atapuma's mother died today but he has decided to race the Giro. There will be a morose air around that team tomorrow, can't see them being fired up for it.

The team with the biggest spread of prices are Astana, who range for 16/1 with Betfred and BetVictor to 50/1 with WillHill and 365. They've quite a similar team to the one that finished 6th last year in Belfast, I think a similar result is on the cards and the 50/1 is where I'd be pricing them too, definitely not 16/1.

Etixx-QuickStep and Movistar are both around 33/1. E-QS will be relying on Uran, Keisse, Serry, Vakoc, Boonen and Meersman to put the power down here and could actually do better than the 33/1 price suggests they might. They are only 12/1 with BetVictor, I'd have them somewhere around the 20/1 mark, so 33/1 represents a little bit of value. 2nd last year, but with only Uran, Vakoc and Serry from that team here. 4th in the Romandie TTT with Uran, Meersman, Serry, Bouet and De La Cruz in the team, it was a good warm-up for them but they were still 14" off Sky and OGE.

Movistar have a good team here too, but with more climbing talent than raw power men so I think the 50/1 on them is about right. The 8/1 with BetVictor is just a joke, their prices are really appalling for this contest, they're betting to a 130% over-round margin on the top eight teams, Betfred by contrast are only 112%. After that I can't really see any of the others troubling the podium. IAM Cycling could go well at a big looking 80/1 and maybe Lotto Soudal at a massive 300/1 but they are pretty slim chances I think with the top 3 or 4 teams mentioned above.

Recommendations:

I am tempted to go large on Orica GreenEdge tomorrow, but I'll keep it steady to start with I think! I think they will win and am having 2pts on them at 4/5 with Corals. 

I think Sky will be their biggest dangers and will take a top 3 place, rather than back them each-way I'm having 2pts on them at 8/15 to finish in the top 3 with Bet365

3pts on BMC NOT to finish in the top 3 at 1/3 with Bet365

1.2pts on Etixx QS to beat BMC at 7/4 with 365

Orica to beat Katusha, IAM to beat Cannondale, Sky to beat TS and Lotto Soudal to beat Jumbo NL - 1pt on the accumulator at 3.6/1 with 365

With the news that broke tonight that Lotto JumboNL will be starting with 8 as George Bennet has been found to have low Cortisol levels I've had 3pts on Lotto Soudal to beat them at 8/11.. I fancied them to beat them as it was as I had added them to the acca and with one man down and a squad that's probably pretty pissed off they could be off the pace tomorrow.