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Published on Thursday, 28 May 2015 22:48

Giro d'Italia St.19

Gravellona Toce to Cervinia

Friday 29th May, 236kms 

This is a monster stage at 236kms, on the third last day of a three week Giro. And not only is it long, it is bloody hard too. Ok, the first 150kms are pretty uneventful, bar a Cat 3 bump they need to get over after 85kms, but the final 86kms or so are pretty savage. Three Cat 1 climbs and over 3,250m of climbing in the last 86kms, it's going to be epi.

Yet another incredible day in the Giro today. The break went, it had a good smattering of teams and a good selection of different types of riders, no real climbing specialists, but a good few strong rouleur types. They knew given the composition of the group that building a big lead was crucial to their chances of succeeding on the stage, and build a big lead they duly did. It hit almost 13 minutes at one point with less than 70kms to go, meaning there was no chance of them being caught. So it looked like it was just going to settle down to a battle among the break away riders and the peloton would just ride their own race to the finish.

Karma is a funny thing and Karma was the word that was buzzing about on twitter after the stage with Juul-Jensen chipping in with a comment to that effect. When there was a sudden crash in the bunch for some riders the pace was just starting to heat up as they approached the foothills of the big climb of tghe day at Monte Ologno. Mikel Landa was caught up in it, Aru was also delayed with some of their Astana team-mates and suddenly we see Contador exploding away from the front of the peloton in a seemingly karma-seeking act of revenge for the Astana move two days ago on the Motirolo. 

Once again we were treated to the site of Contador in full flight, it really is a sight to behold when he gives it full gas on a climb. He just left the likes of Kruiswijk, Van den Broeck, Visconti iand co. for dead in a matter of seconds and very quickly put a minute and a half in to Landa and Aru. If the race was not dead and buried for them already, Contador put the final nail in the Astana coffin. So after all their efforts in the first week they now sit five and six minutes behind Bertie on the GC, a man who dislocated his shoulder and crashed again shortly after. It's been a truly magnificent display from him.

There were some suggestions this morning that Astana's 'Suicide' missions in the first week were all part of Martinell's grand plan to tire Contador out for the Tour de France, but I think that's a bit far-fetched. If it was, it has back-fired badly, he seems to have gotten stronger as the race has gone on. If he is in that sort of form tomorrow, who can stop him??

Hesjedal was fantastic again today, managing to catch Contador who had left everyone else for dead. Weening got in the break to give us a bit of excitement at 150/1, but was one of the first to crack on the climb, they finished 10th and 11th on the stage. Aru beat Amador by ONE DAMN PLACE in the chasing bunch to spoil that matchbet but the nice Evens on Visconti to beat Betancur landed. A small loss of 2.5pts on the day there, but I did manage to back Gilbert for 2pts at 9/2 as I tweeted when they were on the climb, it was a brilliant ride from him and Moinard to take the win, his second of the race.

The Route

They start in Gravellona Toce on the western edges of Lake Maggiore, then head south in a U shape before ending up at almost the exact same latitude in Cervinia. Along the way they first skirt along the shores of the Lago d'Orta and continue along the flatish valley roads until they meet the first little obstacle of the day not long after Biella, the Croce Serra. It's only a short Cat 3 at 9kms in length and shouldn't really cause any problems unless one of the GC teams decide they want to slim down the peloton that early and shed some dead weight.

Once back in the valley again after 95kms the road slowly starts to climb, rising 250m at a pretty steady gradient for the next 50kms. This leads them in to the first of the French sounding climbs of the day, the Saint Barthélemy which is a little bit out of the U shape as they do a little loop to the west of the next climb, the Col Saint-Pantaléon.

This Cat 1 is a tough climb to kick off proceedings proper - 20kms long at an average gradient of 5.6% will blow most of the remaining peloton out the back door early, especially as the steepest gradients that hit 13% are at the foot of the climb. It does level out and actually descends a little near the top and actually descends a little around the 11km mark so the gradient of the climbing is actually steeper than the official average of 5.6%

They crest it with 67kms left to go and then descend for 22kms to to foot of the next climb which takes them back on the U shape heading north again. The Col Saint-Pantaléon is shorter at 16.2kms, but steeper at an average gradient of 7.2%. It's a lot more of a steady gradient though, but the road is incredibly twisty as you can see on the map on the right - I think I counted 30 hair-pin bends on the climb!  We should see some big attacks on this climb, as once over the top of it there are just 28kms remaining, 10kms or so of it descending.

The final climb to the summit at Cervinia is another long one at 19kms but it averages a nicer 5% in steepness. That is a bit misleading though as the first 4kms average only 2,5% and the final 2kms average just 1.3% as it flattens out near the top. There is also a little section of 1500m 6kms in that averages 1.9%, so in actual fact, the average gradient of the actual climbing parts is closer to 7%. The hill flattens out at the 2km to go point which could allow some a few seconds back to get back to any leaders. The last kilometre is straight up more or less meaning if a small group comes to the finish together we should see a good game of cat and mouse and a good sprint.   

Contenders and Favourites

The race is coming to the end of three hard weeks and it is very obvious now who the strong riders are. Contador is flying, Hesjegoggles is doing fantastic, showing his powers of recovery in the third week of Grand Tours again, Aru was really starting to struggle and Landa may be on the verge of running out of energy too. Kruiswijk was going really well but had no answer to Contador's attack today and looked to be struggling at times on the climb today, head bowed and losing the wheel around the 38km mark. He seemed to recover later in the climb but he may well be feeling the effects of the very hard racing. Speaking of hard racing Jerome Pineau said today that the racing of this Giro has been so hard it 'is right up there with the Tour de France years dominated by US Postal..." - quite a leading comment that.. 

Uran has collapsed and disappeared, Betancur struggled today to go with the best and Van den Broeck, Atapuma, Geniez, Caruso, Konig and all the rest just aren't on the same level as the top two guys. So who wins tomorrow on a brutally long stage? Well it's not quite as straight forward as saying it's just between the top two in the betting, Contador, at 2/1 and Landa at 3/1. The break could make it, but who will be in the break is hard to pick again, although it's likely to be the usual suspects like Betancur.. Although given it's such a flat start and as he is a danger to Kruiswijk's Blue Jersey, Lotto-JumboNL might be reluctant to let him go and hoover up mountains points. 

Hesjedal could be a likely suspect too, but given he is now 9th in the GC he may not be let go up the road in a break. I'll pick a few long shots later on, but for now I'll look at what will happen if it comes down to a GC battle. It's a long stage so Tinkoff-Saxo and Astana will have their work cut out to keep control of the peloton for the first 150kms or so until they hit the first climb. They might get help from other teams who are interested in the mountains points like Lotto-J, Movistar or AG2R. Once they hit the climbs though it's likely Astana and T-S will look to split things to pieces again. Movistar might have designs on a stage win too, but also on looking after Amador. 

Contador is clearly in incredible shape and very determined at the moment. He has the GC in the bag, but T-S have not had a stage win yet. Lots are saying that he has designs on winning on Sestrieres on Saturday, but why wait and take a chance on the very last mountain stage? Maybe it will be better to try tomorrow and have the stage win in the bag and he can relax a lot more on the last mountain stage. He will need to attack Landa from probably a fair distance from the top of the final climb as the last 2kms are pretty flat - if he comes to the finish with a small group, or even just with Landa he will probably not win the sprint. It's very possible though that he will skip away, he looked super strong today. Plus, with Hesjedal and Villela helping him for the last 30kms or so he really didn't have to work too hard, definitely not as hard as Aru and Landa had to work to limit their losses. 

I mentioned Hesjedal as a possible break candidate, but it may not necessarily be the first break of the day that he gets involved in. It's possible that he attacks on the first or second climb of the day and gets a head start ahead of the final climb, he doesn't have the explosiveness of Contador or Landa, but let him have a lead and he is just as strong as them and could hold it all the way to the top. In 2012 he attacked on the climb to Cervinia and came in 26" ahead of the favourites but couldn't catch de Marchi, Amador and Barta. Hesjedal also worked hard with Villela today to help Contador, it may be that Contador pays him back tomorrow and let's him go up the road while he watches the Astana boys. There is no love lost as is very obvious now between the two teams and Contador may be happy to just chase them down and sit on wheels.

Amador won the sprint that day in 2012, so has form on the climb, but I can't see him being in a similar situation this year as he is fighting for GC. He did show though that if he comes with a small group he has a decent enough sprint on him. Did Betancur take it easy today in an effort to save energy for tomorrow or Saturday? It's possible, but I'm not taking a punt on him tomorrow. 

Landa is too short to me at 3/1, I can't see Contador letting him just go and take the stage win. But he has been very explosive and it may be that Contador looks to save himself for Sestriere to go out on a bang! There could be a lot of watching and marking between Aru, Landa, Kruiswijk, Amador, Trofimov and Konig so it could be very tight between them. It will take a very strong rider to be able to ride away from this lot.

Outsiders? Zardini rode very well today, as did Bongiorno, they seem to be getting stronger as the week goes on too. The two Bardiani men are 80/1 and 150/1 with PP respectively. Kenny Elissonde was active today and rode well to finish in the Aru group in 26th place. He could try something tomorrow as FDJ have had a pretty poor race so far. Mikel Nieve was on the attack with Hesjedal on this climb in 2012 but couldn't stay with him. He has improved as a rider since then and seems to be coming in to himself a bit more too this week, finishing in 18th place on Madonna and Arpica stages, but he got caught up in the crash today when going well and ended up rolling in way down the field. He could go on the attack tomorrow, it was Siutsou today who was up the road. 

Gio Visconti was very strong today, taking lots of pulls on the front on the Monte Ologno. He has said he wants to win one of the mountain stages this week and is running out of days. If he can climb like he did today and the race is neutralised a little by the GC men marking each other out of it he could happily sit in there and win the sprint at the finish. Igor Anton is also going really well, he was pulling with Contador on the Mortirolo when he was chasing after Aru. He might try to get up the road early tomorrow, if not, he could try on the first or second of the climbs to go with another select group with the likes of Zardini or Nieve. 

It's likely to be Contador who will hold the key to this stage again of course, if he attacks, it will have to be very hard and strong to get away and stay away from Landa. If he decides to mark and watch, others like Konig and Kruiswijk could try their luck and attack in the finale. If it comes down to a sprint finish amongst a small group of favourites, watch out for Visconti, but if he's not there look for Betancur's or Trofimov's sprint. I'll make a decision on whether to back Contador or not in-play tomorrow depending on how the stage is shaping up.

Recommendations:

0.5pts each-way on Giovanni Visconti at 33/1 with various

1pt each-way on Ryder Hesjedal at 10/1 with BetVictor

0.3pts each-way on Igor Anton at 66/1 with PP

0.2pts each-way on Bongiorno at 150/1 with PP

0.25pts each-way on Mikel Nieve at 66/1 with PP 

Match Bets 

Amador to beat Konig - 2pts at 8/15

Zardini to beat Pelizotti - 2pts at 5/6

Elissonde to beat Kangert - 1pt at 11/8