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- Published on Wednesday, 06 May 2015 00:13
Giro d'Italia Favourites
Main Contenders - Contador or Porte?
This year's Giro may not have attracted as good a field as last year for various reasons, but we should be in for a classic battle between the former team-mates Richie Porte and Alberto Contador over the 21 stages. Nairo Quintana isn't here to defend his title, preferring instead to prepare for the Tour de France - Vuelta double.
Chris Froome is also absent, following the same program as Quintana with France and Spain, and Vincenzo Nibali is using the Daupiné to step up his preparations to defend his TDF title.
But enough about who isn't here, let's focus on who is here and what their chances are of winning.
Richie Porte - Team Sky - 11/4 best price
I have to start with the little Tasmanian - he has been in incredible form this year and has been very rewarding for me following him this year. I got word earlier in the year that he was in amazing shape and boy did that info prove spot on. First he won the Queen stage in the TDU on his way to finishing 2nd overall, then the Queen stage in the Algarve as he finished 4th overall (Helped Thomas to win) and then he landed the odds for me in Paris Nice with a superb display, winning the 'Queen' stage and then destroying the field on the Col d'Eze TT. He followed that up with another great showing in Catalunya, winning the overall after distancing Contador a little on the Queen stage won by Tejay Van Garderen, a superb win for me at 16/1. And then just two weeks ago he again won with a powerhouse performance in the Giro del Trentino.
That is a hell of a start to the year and marks him out as the form horse in this peloton for sure. He had a terrible year last year of course, with illnesses and issues ruining his year. The worst of which was probably the chance blown in the TDF when Froome crashed out and he was promoted to team leader and was sitting nicely in a podium for me at 66/1.. then he only goes and gets sick and falls out of contention.
And therein lies the much documented, much mentioned, much feared problem with going all in on Richie - his famous 'bad days' in a Grand Tour. He hasn't led a team in a three week race for a long time and the fear is that he will burn out after such a busy and tiring start to the season. That is the fear that's worth bearing in mind of course, but I think he has an outstanding chance of winning here.
He changed his winter schedule this year and really focused on his preparation and diet and the results were there from the very first time he turned a pedal in anger, taking a surprise win in the Australian National TT Championships. He looks lean, he looks fit and he looks happy and comfortable on the bike. He may have had a hectic start to the year but the only time he looked under pressure to me was when he nervously came off in the descent down to Nice while trying to stay away from Kwiatkowski. But even then he got up, no panic and rode on.
I think this course is perfect for him. Sky have a fantastic team with him here, one of their strongest possible. Powerhouse Siutsou and Kiryienka will just ride and ride and ride all day on the climbs. Bernie Eisel will marshall things 
and control the earlier parts of the climbing stages. Nieve, Konig and Henao are three guys who could all do well in this race but will be tasked with looking after Dickie Doors and can set tempo to keep things under control on those long draggy climbs. He should gain time on Contador in the TTT on the first stage, possibly 10" or more, a nice pyschological first blow that could put him in yellow on the 5th stage, the sort of climb that suits him really well.
He should have no problems (as long as he stays upright!) in the second week either, but when he starts the ITT on stage 14 he will feel pretty confident of putting 30" to a minute in to Contador, maybe 20-30" in to Uran and maybe a lot more in to Aru and the others. He will love this TT, the combination of the flat intro will require good power and the climbing part at the end is perfect for him as we saw in Paris-Nice. If he can have 30" to a minute going in to the last week then Sky will take over and just control the race for him from then on. Yes, Contador on a good day could dance away from him on a hard climb, but the fact is that all the hard climbs are out in the middle of the routes and the final summit climbs are not overly difficult for a team like Sky and a man in form like Porte.
I think he is far better value than Contador at 11/4 and he is going to take a little of my money to start with, I might top up as we go along. I'm crossing all fingers that he doesn't have that off day and he continues his impressive start to 2015.
Alberto Contador - Tinkoff-Saxo - 10/11 best price
Former winner of the Giro in 2008 (and in 2011 which was stripped from him), triple winner of the Vuelta, two-time TDF champion, Contador knows how to win a tough three-week race. He suffered a disaster of course last year in the Tour, especialy as Froome had crashed out by the time he also hit the deck, and it looked like he was also going to miss out on the Vuelta. But by some miracle, he not only recovered on time, despite much bluffing as to how fit he was, but he only went on to win it by over a minute from Froome.
This year hasn't been a great one so far for Alberto, not only on the road, but behind the scenes with the chaos caused by Oleg Tinkoff's interference in the team and the dismissal of Bjarne Riis. He has been a huge influence on Contador's career and it has hit him hard that he is no longer around the team.
On the road, he started ok with a 4th place in the TT in Andalucia, and then followed it up by riding away from everyone, including Chris Froome after a slingshot from Ivan Basso on Stage 3. It looked done and dusted for the GC, but the very next day it was Froome's turn to put the hurt on and he spectacularly blew. It must have been a demoralising blow in one sense, but maybe he knew better where he was at and may not have been too disappointed with how it turned out.
He hasn't raced a whole lot this year though and the next time we saw him in Tirreno he was off the pace, not being able to stay with Quintana, or even Mollema, on the climb in the snow to Terminillo on stage 5, eventually finishing 5th overall. It was a similar sort of situation in Catalunya when he couldn't go with Porte and lost 5" to him, but was still good enough to take 3rd on the stage and 4th overall, with only 7" separating 1st from 4th.
So what to make of that start to the year when appraising his chances in the Giro? Well he hasn't been favourite for the race for months for no reason - all of these races have been just warm-ups. Fine tuning. Since the end of Catalunya he has gone off to Tenerife for two weeks hard training and he says that they have "given the screw one last turn in terms of hours and climbing, I'm ready for the challenge". He is of course targeting the Giro-Tour Double this year and that is one of the reasons for his lighter race schedule, he needs to stay fresh.
He says that they have gone and ridden the TT route and it wasn't as hard as he thought it would be, that he was only out of the saddle for 1km on the climb. But this TT is going to be crucial to his chances. Maybe what he was hinting at was that he would have preferred it to be harder, but I think we all know that. The TT could be the making or breaking of his challenge - he could put in a storming ride and would then be favourite going in to the hard final week, with his confidence soaring. Or if he falters then it could be the other way around - he may be resigned to fighting for 2nd place behind the Skybots. But Contador is a fighter and will give it his all to the very last day. He sees the Mortirolo stage as the key stage of the race, "For me it's the key stage with the Arpica, the Tonale, Mortirolo and the Arpica again".
He has an excellent team with him too, with the experienced heads of Michael Rogers, Ivan Basso and Roman Kreuziger. Add in the experience and climbing power of the likes of Paulinho, Juul-Jensen and Tossata and he has a decent squad to call on. They will lose time though on the TTT and I still think that the Sky team are stronger for stringing things out before the final surges. It may come down to the last lieutenants left with their leaders when push comes to shove, Porte will have Konig and Nieve and Henao maybe, Contador will have Kreuziger and maybe Basso and Rogers.
I think he is an almost certainty for the Podium, probably even 2nd place, maybe 30" or less after Porte, but if he has a really bad day in the TT he could find himself slipping down to 3rd or 4th spot.
Rigoberto Uran - Etixx-QuickStep - 8/1 best price.
Unlucky runner-up last year, he was mugged by Quintana on that infamous stage to Val Martello when the race was/wasn't neutralised for the descent of the Stelvio. Quintana kicked on with Rolland and Hesjedal, Uran stopped to put on a jacket in the freezing conditions. In the end he lost 4'11" and his challenge was over. In the end he did really well to finish 2nd, thanks to his victory in the 42km TT on stage 12, where he won by a massive 1'12" from Diego Ulissi. Runner-up also in 2013 behind Nibali, he got there through some solid rides on some of the toughest stages.
He has been very consistent, if not spectacular in his short stage races so far this year, taking 3rd in Tirreno, 5th in Catalunya and 5th in Romandie also. He should have won the stage to Girona in Catalunya, they should never have left Pozzovivo go. In Catalunya though it was on the Queen stage to La Molina, won by TVG, with Porte 2nd that the damage was done there, he lost 24" to Porte and 19" to Contador. He can't afford to let seconds slip away like that in this race. The TT is where he should make a big move though, enough of a move that could set him up for a podium spot.
Look at the TT last year - he took 2'41" out of Quintana, he should do something similar to some of the other climbers in this race, apart from Porte and Contador. He should be reasonably close to Porte, but should gain time on Contador. The climbs aren't the hardest either for him so he might be able to hang in there and limit his losses on most of them. If he's got good legs he could even win this race, carving out a win here and there on the punchy stages and snaffling bonus seconds too, a big TT could set him up and if he's climbing is at its best he could take advantage of a bad day from Porte or a sub-par performance from Contador like in Tirreno and Catalunya.
Although he also plans to do the Giro-Tour double, the Giro is his big goal this year. He may not be able to go with the best climbers always, but he did finish side-by-side with Quintana on the Zoncolan at the end of a tough three weeks in the Giro 12 months ago. He tends to have a bad day too sometimes though, especially when things really kick off on the hard climbs, but often grinds on to limit his losses. Should we be worried about his reasonably poor TT in Romandie, when he was beaten by the likes of Van den Broeck, Majka and Bardet? Maybe. Or maybe he was just on a poor day and with the podium out of reach he didn't kill himself. We'll soon see.
He doesn't have a great team with him though, so he may well be left to his own devices on a lot of the final climbs. Serry, Vakoc and Bouet are probably going to be his only help and they wouldn't have the firepower of the Saxo or Sky guys. I think though that he has a good chance at a top 3 place, but it will all hinge on the TT. For that reason I think I'll wait for a while before backing him, if I think he is going well he could do a good TT and just before that might be the time to back him.
Fabio Aru - Astana - 11/1 best price.
What to make of this guy. Part of one of the dodgiest teams in cycling, that should have been kicked out of the sport if the UCI had any balls, he exploded on to the scene last year with some incredible performances in the Giro, winning the stage to Montecampione and then finishing 2nd in the ITT to Cima Grappa. As a 23yr old he finished 3rd in his 2nd ever Giro, moving up from 42nd place in 2013.
This year we didn't see him until Paris-Nice and he was understandably off the pace, finishing a lowly 39th after suffering badly on the stage to Nice. He then turned out in Catalunya and then did a lot better, finishing 6th overall, taking 5th place on stages 3 and 5. When push came to shove on La Molina on the Queen stage he slipped back though, losing 21" to Porte.
Since then we haven't seen him in five weeks, during which the twitter storm erupted about the story of him getting 'Dysentery' and losing 5kgs. Apparently he went from 62kgs to 57kgs but is now back to around 60kgs. Rumours flew around of course disparaging the crap about Dysentery (sorry..) and accusing him of having Bilological Passport issues. Greg Henderson even went so far as to publicly calling him a cheat and a doper, something he quickly rescinded, probably on severe legal advice.
Who knows what the truth is, but it does stink if you ask me (sorry again...). Astana are not a team to be trusted and it looks like he was getting fully charged and ready for the Giro. Anyone who loses nearly 10% of their body weight because of illness should be in no state to ride a three week Grand Tour like the Giro, but Astana say he's ok, and he says he's ready to go. Maybe it will come back to bite him in the ass and he fades badly in the second or third week. The TT could also take a lot out of him, nowhere to hide that day and with that body mass gone he will really feel it over 59kms. Or it could be that he is ready to rock and rip it up the climbs with his new-found lighter frame.
He could podium, but I think he is more likely to be 4th to 6th and I don't want to back him, I couldn't cheer for him, as I don't like him.
Domenico Pozzovivo - AG2R - 18/1 Best price
The other great Italian Hope. One of the smallest, lightest men in the peloton at just 1.65m and 53kgs, if he lost 5kgs he'd be blown off the side of the mountain some day.. 9th in 2008 at 25 years of age, 8th in 2012, 10th in 2013, 5th in 2014, he has been pretty consistent in recent years in the Giro. Stage winner on stage 8 in 2012, he has come close since, but hasn't managed to take another victory, 3rd on stage 9 has been the closest he has come.
He has had a very good start to 2015 though, the word from Australia was he was looking very strong and fit coming back from a broken leg, and he was, finishing 6th in the GC of the TDU. He did Ok in Tirreno, taking 8th on the stage to Terminillo, in the same group as Contador and Uran, but lost time in the final TT. He still finished 8th overall in the GC though. in Catalunya he really stepped it up though, winning the stage to Girona with a cheeky, almost stealth-like attack in the last 2kms. He lost 12" to Porte in the Queen Stage but it was good enough to secure 3rd place overall.
In the Giro del Trentino he had a nightmare on stage 2, losing 1'26" and it was very unusual to see him lose so much time. He then turned around the next day and won the stage from Landa and Porte with a very powerful attack. It transpired afterwards apparently that he had suffered a bad hunger knock in the last 5kms of the previous stage and he suffered badly. He finished 7th overall but if he hadn't lost all that time on stage 2 he'd have finished 2nd overall. He finalised his preparations like last year with a great ride in Liege-Bastogne-Liege, taking 8th place..
He should be coming here with big hopes and expectations though, especially after winning two tough stages this year as above, but unfortunately the course just doesn't suit him whatsoever. He will lose time in the TTT to start with. Then, the tough, short, steep climbs that he loves, like the Mortirolo, are in the middle of stages and not at the end.. The longer, not-so-steep climbs are just not ideal for him and the more powerful guys like Porte and Contador could ride away from him. He will lose shed-loads of time also in the ITT, it is too long and just not hard enough for him to be able to do well in. Finally, he tends to struggle in the final week of a Grand Tour, and unfortunately for him, stages 14 onwards are some of the hardest. I think he could do well on some stages but will struggle on others and will lose loads of time in the TTs. 5th to 10th at best for me.
Recommendation:
2pts win on Richie Porte at 11/4 with BetVictor or 5/2 with Various
1pt each-way on Rigo Uran at 8/1 with Various
