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Published on Thursday, 08 May 2014 22:10

Giro d'Italia Jersey Betting 

Who's going to win the KOM and Points Jerseys?

Not only is there an unusual jersey for the leader of the race, a bright pink one, but there are also slightly unusual colours for the winners of the Mountains and Sprinters jerseys in the Giro. The leader of the sprints competition wears red, the leader of the King of the Mountains a deep blue jersey. At least the young riders stays white... 

Sprinters Jersey

I'll start with the sprinters jersey, seeing as they will be going for this right from stage 2 in Northern Ireland. This was won last year by Mark Cavendish, a little bit of a surprise as most expected him to bugger off home long before the finish! But he struggled through it and added another jersey to his already overflowing cupboard. 

He took 4 stages along the way last year and I think the winner this year will have to pull of a similar feat, or they could be passed by punchier riders in the third week. When you are betting on a sprinter in a competition like this, there are a few things that can go against you. 1. They decide they've had enough of 20km climbs in week two and abandon to save the legs and their sanity. 2. They get involved in an accident in the helter-skelter world of Giro sprint finishes and 3. If the sprinters stages are split a number of ways, you could see the likes of Quintana and Rodriguez sneak in to the picture, that's why they hover in the background below the sprinters at 25/1 or so. 

Marcel Kittel is the best sprinter in the race, but he could be victim to all three of the above! He is one of the most likely to call it a day in week 2 or 3, especially if he didn't get his own way and hasn't built up a healthy lead worth staying to try to hang on to. I have him down to win the first two stages I think barring accidents and wind related incidents so he should get off to a flyer. Stage 4 in Italy should be a formality for him though but it gets tougher after that. If he hasn't won at least 2 out of the three stages then he will be up against it. And that is why he is as big as 14/1, you are taking 14/1 I think that he will finish the race!

Favourite for the jersey though and one that I really like the look of is Elia Viviani. He showed in Turkey that he is on fire at the moment, beating Cavendish twice. Although Cavendish is not on the same level any more as Kittel in my opinion, they were super impressive victories which showed him at his wiley, calculating best. He may not have the best leadout in the race for the last km or so, but he doesn't need it. He will elbow and cut his way in to the wheel to follow (Giant Shimano's and Kittel's) and will lie ready to pounce. 

I think he is capable of a top 3 in all of the first three road stages so should be in a good position early on. He is also a bit more of a stayer than Kittel and I expect him to be there at the finish unless for some reason he has fallen out of contention. This is Cannondale's big target in the race, they are coming here to try to win stages and win the Blue Jersey. Over the last two years, the Grand Tours he has entered, (Giro in '13 and Vuelta in '12) he has finished.

I think he will be still in there scrapping for points on the road and through the three weeks, when maybe Kittel has gone home. His confidence is sky high at the moment and he is a real confidence rider. He has been working really hard on his sprinting during the winter and even revealed recently that the track racing he did was for sprinting training and he didn't really care about results. He's a big favourite of ours in this house after getting the opportunity to ride with him and Cannondale last September and I'll be cheering for him in every stage. (that's him to the right!)

At 9/4 best price with Paddy Power I have had 2pts and I may top up in play. He is as low as 7/5 and has traded around 2/1 on Betfair.

Nacer Bouhanni is the co-second favourite with Giaccomo Nizzolo and Bouhanni could put up a good fight in the first few stages. A very fast sprinter, he is known as 'the boxer' and likes to scrap for a position and a win. I can see him being heavily involved both out on the course and at stage finishes and he will be there on some finishes that Kittel definitely won't and maybe not Viviani either.

But.. I have a feeling that he may not last the course. He didn't finish the Tour last year, when he was struck down with a combination of crashes and illness getting the better of him. He also only got as far as stage 12 in the Giro and in 2012 he also only got as far as stage 12 in the Vuelta. I can see a similar pattern this year with the tough climbs of the second weekend probably enough to scare him away. 

Giaccomo Nizzolo has a better chance than others on some stages because of his climbing abililties, which he showed in Romandie when getting over climbs which left Kittle and many others floundering. The problem with him though is that he seemed to show naievety, lack of tactical nous and the inability to sprint as well as people expected him too when he did get to the finish near the front! So I wouldn't be counting on him to deliver a result at 7/1 either. 

Instead, Bling Matthews is a more likely candidate to pick up points on a consistent basis over the three weeks. A tough sprinter with an above average ability to climb, OGE are here for stage wins and see Bling as their best hope for several of them. I can see him scoring points on stages where the others are 20minutes down in the autobus and he could well land a top 3 place at odds of 11/1 with 888Sport. 

I can see the attraction in backing Swift for the reasons given above, but I am not touching a Sky rider for now with the state of that team. He is likely to pull out with an infection, a cold, back pain or whatever excuse they come up with next and not finish the race. 

So it's going to be another tough battle for the Red Jersey, but I fancy Viviani to take the prize back to Italy and Bling Matthews to run him close. The GC men could come close but I don't think close enough.

Recommendation:

2pts win on Elia Viviani at 9/4 with Paddy Power. 

0.50pts each-way on Michael Matthews at 11/1 with 888Sport

King of the Mountains Betting Preview

Just like the random red for the Sprinters Jersey, the king of the mountains jersey in the Giro is not the traditional polka dots you'd expect, but instead is a rather nice shade of blue! This to me is a much harder competition to pick the winner from as it looks wide open and the betting reflects this:

Looking at the table above you will see 4/1 for Quintana, 5/1 for Pirazzi, 8/1 for Rodriguez, 14/1 for Rabottini and 20/1 or so for Monsalve, Rolland, Chalapud and Arredondo.

The points scoring for the jersey this year is below. The Cima Coppi is awarded at the highest point in the race, this year it's the Stelvio. The rest of the climbs score differently depending on their Category - the harder they are, the more points you score!

Cima Coppi – Passo dello Stelvio 40-28-21-15-10-7-4-2-1 
1st Cat climbs: 32-20-14-10-7-4-2-1
2nd Cat climbs: 14-9-5-4-2-1
3rd Cat climbs: 7-4-2-1
4th Cat climbs: 3-2-1

The winner will have to get in numerous breaks to mop up points out on the course and be there when it matters on the bigger climbs too. The GC men will obviously be involved with the number of hard summit finishes in the race but a wiley rider can take advantage of the big favourites watching each other and a rider down the pecking order can get away and nick lots of points in the hills befor the finishes.

I'll start with my pick for the competition, Matteo Rabottini.. This is the big target for Neri Sottoli who come here with two men in the top 5 in the betting - Rabottini and Monsalve, the Venezuelan. Their DS Luca Scinto has said that they are targeting this prize and will be going all out to win it with Rabottini. And the boy has form too. He was sensational in 2012 winning the jersey, sealing it with a monster ride on stage 15 where he was out front for all bar 18km of the stage. He was caught near the top by Rodriguez but somehow found the strength to hang on to his wheel and then sprint past him for the stage victory. 

He didn't have a great 2013 Giro when Pirazzi won the prize, but he is going far better this year than he was this time last year and the camp are very confident in him. 3rd overall in this year's Settimana Coppi e Bartoli, where he had three top 5 placings, including second on the hilly individual time trial. 13th in Trentino where he would have been 'fine-tuning', he is now set to take on this challenge. At 14/1 I have backed him each way to put in a big show. 

Of course Nairo and Rodriguez will be there or thereabouts purely because they are going to take so many points at the summit finishes along the way. We may even see Rodriguez in the jersey as early as stage 6 with the Cat 2 finish up to Montecassino looking like one suited to him. With 14 points on offer to the winner there, the winner of this stage could also take hold of the jersey for a while. 

I think though that the main GC guys will once again be too preoccupied with their GC battle - there are lots of potential winners there this year if you take away the clear favourite Quintana, so points could be spread out a lot - Quintana will win some, Rodriguez will, Pozzovivo might, Martin might. So it could be there for the brave breakaway kind of guys to go out and hoover up points out on the course. 

Last year's winner Stefano Pirazzi is joint favourite with Quintana and he is exactly the kind of rider I mean when I say a wiley, wild attacking type - he goes whenever and wherever he wants, he seems to always want to attack, so he goes and hoovers up points when he wants. He hasn't been going well at all this year though and that cloud hangs over him as a short priced favourite. 46th in Trentino and way off the pace on the climbs - in stage 4 he finished in 53rd, 15mins down, in stage 3 he finished in 50th place, over 3mins down and in stage 2 he finished in 44th, over 2 1/2 mins down. Not the sort of form you would be looking to if you were thinking of backing him! 

Before that, his performance leave a lot to be desired also - 90th in Tour Mediterranean, after finishing 85th on the final stage to Mont Faron, nearly 5 minutes down, 28th in Tirreno, he didn't finish MSR and in fact we didn't see him race for a month after not finishing in San Remo. So lots of doubts in my mind to go against him.

The Colombians have a few that could go well in this competition - Chalapud, Rubiano and Pantano for example, but I don't think they are good enough to consistantly pick up points and Chalapud is going stage hunting so might sit and hide until the day he has marked down as his stage. 

Julian Arredondo at 28/1 could be interesting also, but this is his first Grand Tour and I think it might be too much to expect of him to go out and win the KOM jersey. Dan Martin could get involved early on too in stages 5 and 6 and depending on how badly his Time Trial to Barolo goes he may well give up on GC and go for the climbers jersey. But I'll wait and see on that one in play. 

Recommendation:

1.5pts each-way on Matteo Rabottini at 14/1 with Paddy Power.

Wait and watch in play for more possible bets. 

Young Riders Betting Preview

This competition almost comes down to one thing - whether Quintana finishes the race or not! He is the very short 4/11 favourite with Boylesports to win this jersey, something he comfortably took in the Tour last year by over 13 minutes from Andrew Talansky.

The thing is that he is the hot favourite to win the race. His rivals, should he falter, are all of the older generation. So even if he has a bad day or an incident, there is still a high probability of him finishing above the rest of the younger riders. He should win this bet barring incidents or accidents, but I'm not sure I want to bet lumping on at 4/11.

What about the opposition? Starting in order of the betting, the first up is Rafal Majka who is 6/1 general but 7/1 with Paddy Power. Tinkoff-Saxo come here with a two-pronged attack on the GC in Majka and Roche and they are likely to be involved at the latter end of most of the key stages. Majka has a real chance of being one of the first three home in this competition, but it can depend on how things play out. If Roche is in contention for a top 6, Majka could be his leutentant and may have to sacrifice himself for him. BUT if he is his leutenant then I expect him to be close to the leaders until he has nothing left, but that is likely to be near the finishes. With that sort of outcome he could gain time on his rivals on most key stages. 

Another outcome in his favour is if Roche doesn't go as well as expected, then Majka could become the protected rider and will benefit from that too. The downside is if neither him nor Roche go well and he loses time on the key stages then the bet is doomed! But overall, I think that at 7/1 he is worth an each way bet, as if he finishes 2nd or 3rd to Quintana he will land the odds.

The only others that are probably in with a chance of a good finish given the amount of climbing that faces them are Fabio Aru, Mikel Landa and possibly Wilco Kelderman. Aru and Landa as I mentioned in my 'Outsiders' preview are two interesting runners for Astana. Scarponi is the team leader of course but riding for Scarponi could see them stay close to the front of the race, rather like Majka with Roche. It could also be the case that one or the other of them goes up the road on some stages in order to make others chase. If they manage to stay away it'll help their Young Riders chances. 

Aru is a good climber who has some impressive stage race results on his palmares already, at just 23 years of age. Last year he took 42nd in the Giro and 6th in the young riders competition, which wasn't bad for a 22 year-old. He also placed 4th in Trentino and followed that up with 7th at Trentino this year, featuring 4 top 10 finishes. He is capable of a top 10 finish possibly in this race, and that may be good enough to bring him close to a top 3 in the Young Riders competition. 

His team-mate Landa might have something to say about that though and could well prove a big rival to him for a top 3 spot. He is also very young at just 24, but he has shown in Trentino he is in tremendous form - 3 top 6 finishes out of 4, including a great stage win on Stage 4 to Monte Bondone with a 10th place finish in the GC on top. 

His race programme has been pretty light this year, they seem to me taking it easy on him, but his programme started stepping up as did his results in the last month, with a 14th place GC finish in the Pais Vasco and then 10th in Trentino. He will probably have a bad day or two in the mountains, but then again most bar Quitana could, so I think he could be capable of a top 15 overall and maybe even a top 3 in the young riders. I find them very hard to split on paper though, but if forced to pick one I'd side with Aru. 

Wilco Kelderman could go well too because of his TT abilities, but overall I think it is Quintana's to lose. Rafal Majka could be his biggest danger and he is my bet here - 1pt each-way at 7/1.