Details

Published on Friday, 15 July 2016 22:12

TDF Stage 14

Montélimar to Villars-les-Dombes

Sat 16th July, 208.5kms 

This looks like an opportunity for an unofficial rest day for the GC candidates, as they head north towards the Alps and the final week of the Tour. It's a long stage at 208.5km, and although it looks like it should end in a bunch sprint, it's a pretty rough and lumpy road along the way.

Is it all over bar the shouting? Chris Froome has stuck a dagger in to his GC rivals after a powerhouse display in the TT today, finishing 2nd in the GC, just over a minute behind Tom Dumoulin. It was a stunning ride from Froome, and thankfully involved no running today, although even if he had to run a kilometre he'd still probably would have won. His nearest GC rival Bauke Mollema was 51" behind him, but that was a fantastic ride by Mollema which has pulled him in to 2nd place on the GC, and he looks to be emerging as Chris Froome's biggest danger. 

We had a pretty extraordinary ride from Alejandro Valverde too, who finished in 15th place, ahead of Van Garderen, Yates, Quintana, Porte, Cancellara and Bardet. Tejay and Yates will be pleased with their rides and they now sit in 3rd and 6th on the GC. Porte and Quintana will be disappointed with their rides, Porte has moved up to 8th though but is 4'27" behind Froome. Quintana is still outside even a podium spot, sitting in 4th and is practically 3 minutes behind Froome.

What a ride it was though from Dumoulin who had been backed in to under 2/1 before the race started, clearly the vibes were good for him. Kiryienka unfortunately was on orders from Sky it seems to disrespect the World Champions stripes and he just pottered around the course, something I was worried about, but thought they wouldn't dare try to pull off. But they did. The World Champion finished SEVEN MINUTES and thirty three seconds down, in 120th place. Yep, the world champion was beaten by guys like Julian Alaphilippe who crashed. Ion Izagirre started well and was in 4th place at early time checks, but eventually finished in 8th. Close, but no cigar. The matchbet treble landed at least though to make it a small profit on the day. 

The organisers said that they have this stage thrown in with those fighting for the green jersey in mind, yet the course isn't as easy as it seems, the succession of false flats could have an impact. They reckon that although all the top sprinters will be there at the finish, some "might arrive a little more jaded than others".

There will be enormous pressure on the teams to pull back the break and enormous pressure on the sprinters, as after this stage there is only Berne and Paris where they will get a chance for stage victory again. And that could possibly be just Paris too as the stage to Berne is far from a certainty that it will be a sprint finish. After screwing up on the sprinters stage to Montpellier there will be added pressure, that was a disaster for the sprint teams. 

The sprinting heirarchy was sort of established in the first week, but that can look a lot different heading in to the third week, with fatigue and withdrawals affecting teams and individual riders. That would normally be the case with withdrawals, but incredibly we head in to the 2nd weekend with still 190 riders in the race. There have been no big crashes thankfully and of the eight riders who have abandoned, there are two each from Katusha and FDJ. That's two from Kristoff's leadout train, but really probably only one in Morkov, as JVDB wouldn't really be much use in a leadout. Kristoff did alright without him though in the last chaotic sprint for the minor places behind Sagan and Froome.

Lotto Soudal are a team who are dedicated to supporting André Greipel in this race too and they will be desperate to try to gain Greipel the stage win he craves. A Tour de France is not a Tour de France without at Greipel stage win.. So they will be going all guns blazing to deliver him to the last 200m in a perfect position.  

The Route

We start in Montélimar, the town where Oscar Pereiro took a shock lead in the 2006 edition of the race, a lead he held all the way to the Champs (well after Landis was stripped of his title). After 17kms they rach the Côte de Puy Saint-Martin, a Cat 4 climb of 3.6kms at 5.2%, where we will probably see the first break of the day go. That's followed by 70kms of rolling rolls and hills and after 90kms, the next Cat 4 climb arrives, the Côte du Four à Chaux, 3.9kms at 4.2%. 

Just 6kms later and it's the final of the Cat 4 climbs of the day, the Côte d'Hauterives, a 2.1km climb at 5.5%. There's still well over 100kms to go at this point, with plenty of rolling hills still to tackle along the way. The road does start to flatten out a little as they approach the finish in the 'park of the birds' at Villars les Dombes, with the last 5kms being almost dead flat. It's an area that's littered with hundreds of 'Etangs' or lagoons, some of which surround the Parc. With 7.5kms to go they pass through Birieux and head straight up the D2 in to Villars les Dombes, then turn left in the village and back down the D1083 to finish on the long straight road outside the Parc. 

tab  Route Map}

Contenders and Favourites

A supposedly flat stage, but it is anything but flat, with three Cat 4 climbs and around another seven uncategorised lumps to get over along the way. It looks a perfect day for a strong breakaway to go long, the first climb of the Cote de Puy Saint Martin is a tough start to the day, 3.6kms at 5.2%. That comes with just 17kms gone so there will be a huge fight for the first 20kms to try to get in the break. I can't imagine the GC teams are going to do anything to really control the race and the sprinters teams are not going to try to start contrilling it with 180kms ahead of them. 

So the break will get a big lead - look for guys like Cummings again, De Gendt and now that the TT is out of the way we might even see the likes of Cancellara and Dennis actually try something in this race. Cancellara might be asked to look after Mollema, but now that Theuns has abandoned after crashing in the TT today, Fabs might have a bit of freedom to attack now for the rest of the race. Berne might be a more suitable stage for him though! Sep Vanmarcke has started to show his face a little bit more recently, maybe he'll try? Jasper Stuyven, Ramunas Navardauskas and Alexis Gougeard could all try too, but there are probably 50 or more guys who could try, but I think they will struggle to hold off the peloton today. 

As for the sprinters, well, who knows if they will actually manage to pull off a conventional, flat out, all sprinters trains and sprinters going for it sort of sprint this time around? There have been lots of messy sprints in this race and that is mainly down to the fact that two of the sprint trains that should be taking control at the front of the peloton have been failing miserably to do so. 

I want to back Marcel Kittel again, he has to get one right at some point - but he and EQS have let us down so many times already it's hard to bring myself to want to back him. They should do a better job of the leadout, and with Martin and Alaphilippe out of the GC running now, it should be all for another stage win for Kittel. I think they are starting to get the train right, they need to come late and fast and give him a better starting point for his sprint than he has had lately. If he can start with 150m to go or so instead of 300m to go, especially in to the headwind, he should have the power to take the win.

André Greipel has been very disappointing so far and is very disappointed I'd say with the way things have gone for him, with no stage win yet. He suffered and struggled a lot in the wind, which is not like a Lotto-Soudal man, but it should be a bit easier for him tomorrow. Can he and Lotto finally get it right? I don't know, 

What about Direct Energie? Can they finally get it right too? They have been too lightweight, too lacking in experience to do the right thing at the right time and have generally left Bryan Coquard to fend for himself. He will be pretty disappointed with his race so far, I'm pretty disappointed, I expected more from him, as I'm sure he expected more from himself too. He nearly won a stage though, so it's not all bad, but nearly two weeks in, following two very tough stages, what can we expect from him here? He's 16/1 and that's about right I think, I think 4th to 6th for him. 

Mark Cavendish had a horror show on the stage to Montpellier, breaking his rear mech after touching another rider and having to drop out of contention as no replacement bikes were nearby. In the end it didn't end up in a sprint though so he didn't miss out on much and in fact probably saved some energy as he wasn't scrapping for his life and fighting like hell to be near the front. He might look big at 4/1 tomorrow afternoon and he looks like a 'bet to nothing' at 4/1 with Paddy Power, he's only 5/2 elsewhere. He has lost Renshaw though so that's something to bear in mind with regards to his leadout. It is going to be a headwind as they come down the finishing straight though, and Cav's aerodynamic sprinting position might be a big advantage. 

Alexander Kristoff though is one as you know I've been watching and waiting for to come in to form and I think he is getting there - winner of the bunch sprint for 5th in Montpellier, he clearly is finding his legs. But in that sprint Kittel had backed out of it and finished 25th, Cav was out of it because of his mechanical and Greipel never got in to is too. I was hoping to back him, but he's very short now at just 7/1, I was hoping for 16/1 or something like he was a few days ago. 

Peter Sagan could well go on the attack again, either from the start of later on, he really looks like could win any stage he wants nearly. But if it comes to a sprint, can he beat the pure sprinters again? Maybe not this time. Christophe Laporte was very close to Kristoff in Montpellier and took '2nd' in the sprint. He is a big looking 66/1 to repeat that sort of result tomorrow, but he clearly is sprinting well and could come close to a podium if others have issues. Dan McLay, Michael Matthews and Dylan Groenewegen just don't look good enough to get up there in a sprint like this to me, 4th to 10th for them at best I think.

Another horrible stage to try to pick a winner from. I've said it a few times already 'surely EQS get it right this time' and they have let us down. I think they will get it right soon though, but they are running out of opportunities. They need to win this stage for Kittel and the team and I think they will just swing it. The battle for the next places should be fierce though with Griepel, Cav, Sagan and Coquard all likely to be fighting it out and Cav looks an ok bet at 4/1 each-way. I honestly almost was going to call this a 'no-bet' stage but I just feel that I'll be kicking myself tomorrow afternoon when Kittel wins and I wasn't on him.

Recommendations:

1.5pts win on Marcel Kittel at 9/4 with Ladbrokes 

Matchbets

Coquard to beat Sagan - 2pts at evens with PP

Laporte to beat McLay - 2pts at 5/6 with PP