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Published on Tuesday, 19 September 2017 21:36

2017 World ITT Champs

Bergen, Norway

Wed 20th Sept, 31kms 

After the Team Time trial was won in stunning fashion by Sunweb on Sunday, we move on to the individual time trial over a challenging course of just 31kms, the shortest time trial distance ever in the World's. 

The shortest time trial ever run before this was back in 2001 in Lisbon, Portugal when Jan Ulirch took the title on a course that was just 38.7kms, with the average course distance generally around 45kms.  But just because it's the shortest ever doesn't make it one of the easiest ever, as they do two laps of an undulating loop before finishing on the 3.4km, 9.1% climb to Mount Floyen. 

Last year's TT in Doha saw Tony Martin managed to regain his lost crown of the world's best time triallist, reverting back to his old TT position last year to storm to a comfortable victory over Vasil Kiryienka and Jonathan Castroviejo. 

Sunday's TTT was pretty amazing, a very close and exciting race saw Sunweb land the odds at 12/1 to shock the old-world order of TTT teams. Odds-on favourites Sky were poor as I thought they might be, and were lucky to hang on to a podium spot. BMC were good, but just not good enough, but QuickStep were disappointing to come home in 4th, 13" behind Sky. They were down to four riders pretty early on and although they were close to Sunweb's time at the first intermediate, they faded towards the end and dropped away. 

It was something similar for Sky, they started well and were trading shorter than 4/5 in-play, but they were down to five by the climb and Geraint Thomas' lack of fitness and race practice told as he got dropped on the climb and they had to wait up for him for a while before forging on without him. Then Moscon started to struggle, and the weak links I pointed out cost them a lot of time. I had a whitewash with the bets, which is obviously very annoying, but I hope at least I put some of you off backing Sky or even BMC. Movistar were terrible in the end, but Astana were even worse, they couldn't even beat Continental team CCC. I don't think we're going to make back what we lost backing Tom Dumoulin for Sunday, but let's see if we can see any angles to take on. 

The Route

Two 15km laps around Bergen, followed by a 3.4km climb up Mount Floyen to finish. They start in the centre of Bergen, turn left and start on a loop that takes them over the first little hill at Solheim and down south to Arstad, where they start climbing the 2km climb up to Kronstad, but it's a very gentle gradient of only around 3%. They continue heading north, up past Bergen and the turn-off to the climb of Mount Floyen until they reach Sandviken, then turn sharply south again and roll along the flatter roads by the coast through the finish line and do it all again once more. 

With 3.4 kms to go they turn right and start the final climb up to Mount Floyen, and this is one nasty way to finish the TT. It averages 9.1% for 3.4Kms, starting out 500m blocks at 9.6%, 9.8% and 9.8%, a little dip to 'just' 7.6% then 10.2%, 10.1% before easing back to 5.5% for the final 400m. This will require a lot of power at the end of a hard 27.5kms of rolling roads, so they will need to have kept something in reserve for the final climb. 

The weather: They have been pretty lucky so far with the weather in that the TTT was run off in lovely conditions and the U23 ITT was also done in beautiful sunny conditions. The weather is forecast to change though for Wednesday, with an 80% chance of rain during the day and about a quarter of an inch of rain expected to fall. There is a mild south-westerly wind expected of around 7-8mph, which will be a head-wind on the westerly part of the course as they head south and a tail-wind as they head up the right hand side of the course towards the climb of Mount Floyen. But it looks like it will be wet for the whole duration of the TT, so should be quite similar conditions for all riders. 

Contenders and Favourites

This is going to be an interesting TT, the parcours is very challenging and very exciting and as we've seen in the TTT and the U23 TTs already, it can punish you if you go out too hard. The U23s did a slightly different course, in that they didn't take on Mount Floyen, but the first part of the course is the same loop that was used in the TTT and the U23 race. It does look like there are ways to win and lose this race, the stronger TTers will have to go hard on the flatter part, and try to hang on to their advantages on the climb, where as the climbers will just try to go as hard as they can on the flat, and go full gas on the climb. 

The climb is long enough and steep enough for most riders to probably want to change their bikes to a road bike at the bottom of the climb, there is even going to be a sort of 'Pit zone' area at the bottom of the climb where mechanics will be ready with a road bike. Tom Dumoulin's trainer Adriaan Helmantel said in the Dutch newspapers that he thinks changing bikes will save Dumoulin 5 seconds: “it’s only 5 seconds, but those can be the difference”. So we could see a real battle among the mechanics sunday to see who can make the quickest bike change, a good change and a good push by a strong mechanic could make all the difference!

What we have seen so far in the TTs to date though is that if you go out too hard, too early you will really suffer and pay for it later in the route.. but 27kms to the bottom of the climb isn't too far in the grand scheme of 45-50km TTs, some will be only just getting warmed up and then they have to smash it in to the inner ring. 

Is there any point in even discussing the other candidates other than Tom Dumoulin? He's on fire at the moment and this course looks perfectly suited to him. One of the best TTers in the world at the moment, he will be right up there with some of the fastest around the majority of the course. And a 3.4km climb at 9.1% is managable for him too, it's right in his comfort zone as we have seen already with his wins in races like the Giro and the Vuelta.

He dragged Sunweb around the TTT course on Sunday almost single-handedly and powered them to an amazing victory. And he looked like he had been on a Sunday spin afterwards, not a care in the world. 3rd in 2014 on the hilly course in Ponferrada, 5th in Richmond in 2015 but a disastrous 11th in last year's race in the heat of Doha after a long and hard season. He has revenge on his mind and wants to be double world champion after taking the TTT on Sunday. 

His biggest rival is Rohan Dennis of course, the BMC man was almost dropping all of his team-mates whenever he went to the front on Sunday, he looked to be over the illness that took him out of the Vuelta. That is an ominous sign for all his rivals and if it weren't for the climb, I'd make him the favorite to take this. But if he does a blistering opening 27kms, probably one of the fastest out there, can he limit his losses on the climb? He isn't the worse climber over a short-ish distance like this, and it may be that he is one of the few that doesn't change to a road bike and just stays seated and powering as fast as he can up the climb.

He'll be smarting after missing out on that stage win at the Vuelta and then losing the TTT to Sunweb, he won't want Dumoulin to get one over on him twice in a week. But I don't think he'll like the wet conditions as much as the likes of Dumoulin and Roglic so it might count slightly against him. 

Chris Froome is the same price as Dennis and where Dennis will have the upper hand on the flatter parts, Froome will make up for it on the climb. He has been up and down with his time trialling this year, but his performance in the final Vuelta TT was exceptional, coming from 18" down at the first split to winning by 29". The one issue I have with that though is that that course was over 40kms long and he really only got going full gas in the last 15kms or so. In this TT, 25kms in and he's at the base of the climb, so there will be a different sort of effort required. 

I did warn against various members of Sky on Sunday, one of which was Froome and whether the celebrations and fanfare of winning in Spain has taken the edge off of Froome. Well he seemed to be ok on Sunday, but not as powerful looking as Dumoulin and Dennis, and given how he didn't blow the doors off in the final TT in Marseille of the Tour, with it's hilly finish, I'm against him for this again. 

Primoz Roglic is now a name that we have to consider among the top echelons of world class time triallists, a huge development for the former ski jumper. Fatigue got the better of him in the final TT in the Tour as he only finished 14th, a long way back, and he struggled a bit too over the 16km TT in the TOB just two weeks ago, finishing just 12th, although there was a quality field of TTers ahead of him. But they are the kinds of guys he's meeting here, so to finish behind a lot of his rivals there would have been a bit disappointing. 

He did blitz the 18km course in the Tour of Switzerland though earlier in the year, beating Richie Porte, Castroviejo, Froome and Kelderman. He also won the shorter prologue at the Ster ZLM, the final 27.7km TT in the Pais Vasco and had a few other top tens too. It does look like he might have hit a peak though from April to June and seems to have come off the boil a bit after the exertions of the Tour. He may struggle again and 4th to 9th place finish in play is the bet for him I think.

Maciej Bodnar is 5th favourite around 25/1 and he too has had a pretty decent year on the TT rig. Winner of that tough TT at the end of the TDF, he beat his compatriot Kwiatkowski by one solitary second. He followed that up with 2nd in the BinkBank Tour, just 4" behind Stefan Kung, but he did only manage to finish 3rd in the Polish nationals and a lot of his other TTs this year have been pretty ordinary. And there is no room for ordinary on a course and time like this.

It's not often you see Tony Martin at 33/1 for a time trial, but that's what he is, and for a reason - he will lose a lot of time on the final 3.4kms. And the likes of Dumoulin, Dennis and Froome are pretty close to him on the flat theses days but will leave him behind on the hill. Not for me this year Tony!

Willko Kelderman is 33/1 and that looks a decent enough price for him, if only Dennis, Dumoulin and Froome weren't here! Already a gold medal winner here with Sunweb in the TTT with Tom Dum, he'll be going out to try to beat his team-mate and fellow Dutchman to take individual honours as well. A brilliant 2nd also in the Vuelta ITT, just 29" behind Froome, at one point it looked like he was actually going to win it, but Froome got faster as he faded and he finished 29" behind him, a huge flip from the first time check to the finish. 

Kelderman has to make sure he doesn't do that tomorrow, if he goes out too hard he will really suffer on the climb at the finish. But he also has to keep a high enough pace that the likes of Dennis and Froome don't get too far ahead of him that he loses a chance of a medal. A tough one for Kelderman, but he does look in great form, and it wouldn't suprise me to see two Dutch Sunweb men on the podium on Sunday. 

Like Tony Martin I think the climb will see off the challenges of Vasil Kiryienka, Bob Jungels, Victor Campenaerts and Vasil Kiryienka, and it's hard to see Ilnur Zakarin, Nelson Oliveira or Yves Lampaert excelling on this course either and beating the top guys. 

So it looks like it's TomDum's to lose, but there's not a lot of value in him at 4/7 with most bookies, but he is 4/5 on Betfair if you use Betfair and that looks ok to me, if you don't, click here to get an account and back him. I think he will blitz it around the earlier part of the course in a similar sort of time to Dennis, but hold the time better on the final climb. He has planned the bike change, he knows the difference it will make and I think he will nail it on Sunday. If he time trials up it like he time trialled up the climb to Blockhaus in stage 9 of the Giro (that was 10kms at 9.4%!) then he will fly up this climb too, it shouldn't hold any fears for him.

He won't mind the wet weather at all, he has won a stage of the Vuelta in the pouring rain and it was pretty cold and miserable on the stage to Blockhaus in this year's Giro. 

The question is, where is there any value for the podium behind him? Well Dennis and Froome are bound to be close, unless Dennis has one of his meltdowns. Primus Roglic has come in for a lot of support, he has been slashed from 50/1 to 16/1 in places, and I can see why, he should like the course and if either of the top 3 slip up he's the most likely to take advantage. He won't mind the wet conditions either. The value might be in the finishing positions markets in-play, where I want to try to back Kelderman and Campanaerts. 

Start times

Recommendations 

5pts win on Tom Dumoulin at 4/5 on Betfair

Watch the in-play markets for Kelderman and Campanaerts for 4th to 9th finishes

Matchbets

Stefan Kung to beat Tony Martin - 2pts at 19/20 with Will Hill

Kelderman to beat Kung - 3pts at 5/6 with WH

Dumoulin to beat Dennis, Kung to beat Martin and Kelderman to beat Kiryienka - 2pts on the treble at 7/2 with Bet365

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