Details: Published on Wednesday, 07 May 2014 00:13

Giro d'Italia Favourites

Main Contenders - Is Quintana worth backing at 10/11?

The race may be without reigning champion Vincenzo Nibali, who's concentrating on the Tour de France and it may be without Tour de France Champion Chris Froome, but it does still have a fantastic line-up of cycling superstars when it starts in Belfast on Friday the 9th May. The favourites list is dominated by climbers though and it's easy to see why.

It's going to be a race that will suit climbers for sure. The 9 summit finishes, including a very hard mountain time trial will ensure that it will be the cream of the climbing talent who will rise to the top. There is going to be an intrigiung battle between young and old too with the favourite Quintana almost exactly 13 years younger than third favourite Cadel Evans who is 37 years old.

quintana baby Starting at the top of the betting we have Nairo Quintana, the 'Dimunitive' Colombian, as we will no doubt hear him being referred to several hundred times over the next three weeks by Carlton Kirby on Eurosport! Yes, he's small - just 1.67m and just 59kg and not only is he short in stature, but he's pretty short in price too for the race - 10/11 best price and as short as 4/6.

We haven't seen a whole lot of Nairo this year, with the overall victory in the Tour de San Luis his only victory and that was way back in January. He won a stage and 'gifted' another to Arredondo, much to my annoyance as I had backed him to win it.

We didn't see him then for over a month until he placed 23rd in the Vuelta a Murcia, and that was followed by less than impressive runs in Almeria and Roma Maxima. He then went back to Colombia for what has become his traditional pre-grand tour preparation at altitude and it is hard to know what sort of condition he will turn up in. It has worked for him before, but equally it hasn't always - he didn't go all that well in the 2012 Vuelta with a similar preparation.

He did do better in Tirreno-Adriatico though, almost matching Contador's pace on stage 2, just being out-sprinted by him in the last few hundred metres. He lost all chance of victory though on stage 4 when he was unable to match Contador's acceleration on the penultimate climb. He finished 12th on the stage though, making up time on the final, quintana m25 brutal slope to the finish in Guardiagrele and it was enough to secure 2nd place in the GC. He was over 2 minutes behind Contador though and it showed that he wasn't quite tuned up yet. He was a minute and two minutes ahead of two rivals for the Giro though in Arredondo and Pozzovivo, so, an impressive looking Contador aside he'd have won it.

There's no doubting his talents though, especially on a course like this. He has a very strong Movistar team with him who should get a good result in the team time trial to kick things off well. Amado, Castroviejo, Malori and even Quintana himself are all good against the clock and should be top 5 in the opening stage.

The team is packed full of climbing power too though and with the rouleur, TT type men for the lower slopes, followed by the climbers Izagirre, Anton, Herrada he has a squad to really put the peloton under pressure on the climbs, both the long climbs (and there are some very long ones) and the shorter ones. It all depends then on whether Nairo is able to finish things off at the top. The 7 summit finishes will play right in to his hands and even if he won't win them all he should take time off rivals on each one.

The mountain TT on stage 19 will be right up his street too though as a climb of that gradient (8% average over the 19kms of the climb) should see him put time in to the likes of Evans, Scarponi and most of the rest of the GC favourites.

He is a worthy favourite and it looks like it is going to be very difficult to beat him. Has he any weaknesses or chinks in his armour? Well, one crucial point will be whether he turns up here fully tuned up and at his best, as he hasn't really shown that he is near his best yet this season. It may be that he might not be at 100%, but at least he has 7 stages to ride himself in to better shape as the first real test doesn't come until stage 8 and the climbs of the Carpegna and the Montecopiolo. If he is not on good form for that, his race could be over with less than half the race gone.

I fully expect him to be ready and in shape by stage 8 and I think he is going to be very hard to beat. There aren't many who will be able to stay with him when he dances away on the pedals on the steep summit finishes, and with 10" bonus for stage winners, he could quickly start to put big time gaps between him and the rest. The TT to Barolo even plays in to his hands a little more than a 42km TT should, with the first 12kms all uphill and the last 8kms taking in the rolling hills of the vineyards around Barolo. He is also likely to win, or at least put some serious time in to his rivals on the Mountain TT on stage 19.

The one thing to watch out for could be the dangerous opening stages in Ireland. Stages 2 and 3 could be real helter-skelter affairs over the rough roads of Ireland, with a skittish and nervous bunch and possibly windy and wet weather - it is Ireland after all! There could be accidents and crashes and maybe even splits in the winds and I am tempted to hold off on backing him until maybe before stage 5, as unless the Movistar team crush some of the other rivals teams in the TTT I don't think his price will change much but you might just escape any disasters should he run in to any problems.

purito 19 Second favourite in the betting is Joaquim 'Purito' Rodriguez at 3/1 best with BetVictor. Purito is the bridesmaid when it comes to Grand Tour results, finishing on the podium on all three Grand Tours, but never winning any of them. In recent years he has developed in to one of the most consistent stage race riders, stealing time where and when he can on the steeper finishes and hanging in for as long as he can on the longer less steep ones that he is less suited to.

He has come very close to winning - none more so than in the 2012 Vuelta when it looked like he had it in the bag only for Alberto Contador to audaciously attack him when he least expected it and steal the victory from him. That hurt him a lot and he has learned a lot from it - you can never relax for even a minute if you want to win a Grand Tour. And he is desperate to win a Grand Tour now - picking the Giro over the TDF this year, he clearly fancies his chances.

He has had a mixed start to the year, but it is cleat that he has scaled back his racing program this year in a bid to be fit and fresh for the Giro. He skipped Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico and even The Tour of the Pays Basque but he did do his local race, the Volta a Catalunya and that was an impressive performance by him to win it from Contador and Van Garderen. His performance on the steep slopes to the finish at La Molina were what made the difference at the end of the race. The way he accelerated away from Froome, Contador and Quintana was very impressive and I can see him pulling off that kind of finish a number of times over the next three weeks.

He defended his lead well from then on to seal the overall GC by just 4 seconds, but the Giro is a different level altogether. The longer climbs (and there are some super long ones) may not suit him perfectly and he has been injured lately so it will be interesting to see how he copes with the long hard days in the saddle, compared to the punchy shorter climbs.

I think we could see him in Pink at some point over the three weeks, but will he be there at the finish? I think it could be another bridesmaid performance by Purito.. I think he will lose time to some of his rivals on the time trials, especially the TTT and the TT to Barolo and I think he could get caught out one or two of the really hard long climbs like the Cima Grappa on stage 19 or the Zoncolan on Stage 20. At the end of the Tour last year, Quintana just edged him out of second place by being stronger on the penultimate stage (and landed a whole series of bets for me on that day!!) and we could see a repeat of that sort of performance this year with the parcours and the way it finishes.

I think he is a pretty solid looking top 3 bet though but there isn't much value about for that at just 1/2.

cadel Next up we have Cadel Evans, former Tour de France champion.. Following his performance in the TDF in 2013 though I had given up on him ever being a challenger again at a major tour. Well beaten on all the important stages it was almost sad to see him limp up the climbs with the cameraman loitering around to catch his suffering and misery. But yet, here he is as 3rd favourite for a very tough looking Giro at just 12/1 best price (10/1 general price) after being around the 20/1 mark a month ago.

In that month though he showed in the Pais Vasco that he was in good shape, taking a very solid 7th place overall after finishing no lower than 26th in all 6 stages and recording 4 placings in the top 11. His performance in stage 4 up to the summit finish at Eibar was probably the most impressive, coming home just 3" behind the winner Woet Poels, but with the likes of Contador, Valverde, JC Peraud and Mollema.

Just 10 days later though he bettered that significantly by winning the Giro del Trentino from Pozzovivo, Niemiec and Duarte. He started well with the BMC squad taking a surprise win in the Team Time Trial, comforably beating Team Sky and Movistar. This augurs well for the TTT in the Giro as Bookwalter, Eijjsen, Morabito and Oss all line up on Friday in Belfast with him again from that winning team. They may well get off to a flyer and give Evans a little advantage over his rivals.

He also climbed very impressively - 4th on stage 2 up the steep climb to San Giacomo di Brentonico, which averaged 6.9% over nearly 15kms, finishing ahead of Pozzovivo, he bettered that by winning the next stage up to Roncone, which saw the last 2.5kms average around 10% with sections of over 15%. On a longer climb more akin to the longer climbs he will face in the Giro, on stage 4 (19kms at 8% average) he finished 5th, again ahead of the likes of Pozzovivo, Aru, Duarte and Scarponi. He controlled the stage on his own, protecting his lead and just drove the remainder of the group at a solid pace to discourage attacks and keep his rivals under pressure. It was enough at the time to tempt me at the time in to having 1pt each way on him at 12/1 but I'm not so sure about the win part of that bet, it will require Quintana to falter somehow I think.

He clearly is in good shape then, but this is a different level altogether. Pozzovivo clearly didn't live up to the hype and as good as the like of Duarte and Aru are, they are not Quintana, Rodriguez or Dan Martin. He should be there or thereabouts on most of the main stages but I think when the roads get really steep we could see him start to suffer towards the end of the last week. The climbs to Cima Grappa on stage 19 or the Zoncolan on Stage 20 could find him out and he may lose time also on the mountain TT, his time trialling just isn't what it used to be. I think he is well capable of a top 6 placing, but at 10/1 he's a good, but not a great bet for the top 3 each-way.

Next up we have our first enigma - Rigoberto Uran. What to make of Uran's season so far? If you were to just look at the final time trial in the Tour de Romandie last week you'd think he was in great shape - a surprising 4th, just 15" behind Froome and 14" behind Martin.

I say surprising because nobody saw that ride coming, his performance in the race up until then was pretty poor. And not just that, his performances and build up to this race have been anything but encouraging. His performances in Tirreno-Adriatico and in Catalunya were nothing to get excited about, finishing in 31st and 29th place respectively. Illness saw him miss quite a lot of important racing, forcing him out of the Ardennes classics and again, his return after a month off saw a pretty average performance up until the TT. Nothing to suggest that he could finish on the podium here.

Nothing, bar that last TT though, and the fact that he is a well established Grand Tour rider who has finished 2nd in the Vuelta.. The big question is will his preparation harm his chances in the second week or will he ride himself in to contention. I am thinking more the former and I am not interested in backing him.

pozzovivo-giro Our second enigma is Domenico Pozzovivo - I say he is an enigma because he seems to continue to disappoint when a lot is expected of him - case in point, his disappointing 2nd in the Giro del Trentino. I know it's harsh to claim 2nd place as disappointing, but he went in to the race as the 6/4 favourite and it looked a race that was made for him. As it turns out, he was well beaten by Cadel and that in itself is worrying - if he can't beat Evans on the likes of those climbs, what chances has he of winning the Grio?

He often seems to be going well and then fades at the end of stages - he lost time to Evans (and others) on stages 2,3 and 4 and you would have to think that that sort of form will see him being left behind by the better climbers in this race. But, then, he turned around just two days later, when I thought he would be tired and put in a brilliant performance in LBL. First of all to respond to Arredondo's attack on La Redoute and then to go a second time with Caruso in a great move that nearly made it.

His other results this year though set a pattern that I think could be repeated here - 10th in San Luis, 6th in Oman, 6th in Tirreno, 8th in Catalunya. Last year it was 6th in the Vuelta, 7th in Poland, 10th in the Giro.. I can see a similar result this year - 4th to 10th, so I am not backing him each way for the overall.

Irish eyes will be smiling if Dan Martin can get his race off to the best possible start with a win in the TTT, possibly putting him in to the first Maglia Rosa before they roll south to Dublin. What a way that would be to help martin tob erase the nightmare of his last bend fall in Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Dan is an outsider with a great chance of a top 6 place, and if things fall in to place for him, possibly podium. He too has had a strange start to the year - he hasn't done a lot of racing at all with his programme completely focused on being prepared for the Giro.

An anonymous performance in Tirreno saw him placing 55th, and in Catalunya, a race he had won the year before he finished a disappointing 16th place. Then he pulled out of Amstel Gold half way around with knee pains, much to the chagrin of Jonathan Vaughters, who lambasted him for his lack of team ethic. It seemed to do the trick and although he was a big 25/1 for Fleche-Wallone he came very close to winning it.

And who can forget the outcome of Liege, when he slipped over when in pursuit of Caruso with the finish line in sight. My annoyance of losing a 50/1 winner (had backed him the night before Fleche-Wallone, he went off 7/1 second favourite on the day) was thankfully more than compensated for by my 25/1 winner, Simon Gerrans.

That week though showed that Martin is in good shape. He accelerated away from quality fields both times with very impressive bursts of speed. In FW, Valverde out-did him but it looked like he had got the jump on him in Liege, we'll never know if he could have held off a flying Gerrans and Valverde in the run to the line.

He has suffered before on long climbs and this could be his achilles heel again this year. There is no doubting that he will like some of the stages in week 1 with some of those punchy finishes, and there is a great chance of at least one stage win from him. Can he take enough time on those stages though to make up for what he will lose in the Barolo TT? As this is another problem for him - he isn't the best time triallist either. Thankfully the TT at Barolo has climbing in it to tilt it a little back in his favour, and the long TT climb may play to his strengths if he can get in the zone and tap out a good rythm on the climb.

Another possible weak link is the TTT, despite the significance of possibly putting him in Pink on the first day, I can't see it happening. On a very similar profile to the TTT in Belfast in Tirreno, Garmin-Sharp finished a poor 18th out of 22 teams. A start like that could be a disaster for Martin with a possible big time gap to make up on the likes of Quintana and Evans after just 21.7kms

I think though that he will hold his own on the mountain stages and could be one of those that can hang on to Quintana and Rodriguez on some of the really tough stages. I think he will still be there when the likes of Scarponi, Pozzovivo, Uran and others have fallen away. If that's the case and he can steal stage win bonuses then he could pull himself away from the pack and on to a podium position. It will be hard for him, but at 36/1 on Betfair I thought it was worth a back. He is 5/6 to win a stage and that price is worth taking too as I think he could win possibly up to two stages. Stage 5 in to Viggiano looks well suited to him and stage 6 has a Liege-Bastogne-Liege type distance to it at 247kms, with a nasty Cat2 climb to Montecassino at the finish, averaging 5.2% over 8.5kms but hits 15% in places. Also, there is the possibilty that if he falls out of contention after the Barolo TT he will go all out in to stage hunting mode, if he hasn't won one already.

So out of the main favourites then I think Nairo Quintana is a rock solid favourite but I am going to wait on backing him until maybe after stage 4 or 5. If he is still around the even money mark then I am going to have a decent bet on him I think.

I think Purito is a rock solid bet for the top 3 but there is no value there and he is too short at 3/1 for the win for me. Cadel I think might struggle for a podium spot if Nairo and Rodriguez are on top form, but should be a good top 6 bet, and I don't like Uran or Pozzovivo for the podium. I think Dan Martin could surprise and is worth a bet at the price. I have a few other fancies in my 'outsiders' preview which is here.