- Details
- Published on Friday, 01 July 2016 00:10
TDF Team Classification
Who will be the top team?
The Team Classification prize should be a very tight contest this year. The top GC teams are packed with top quality riders and they will all be fighting for every place on every stage.
This is an unusual one in that even though it’s called the ‘team’ classification, it’s only the top 3 riders on each stage’s time that is calculated for the purposes of the Team Classification. This means that you will see riders for teams like AG2R who are maybe 2-3 minutes behind the winners on a mountain stage fighting all the way to the line for what appears to be a lost cause with the race already long done. Teams like AG2R, who take these competitions seriously, or Movistar, BMC, Sky and Astana who like to have the bragging rights at the end of the race of being the ‘best team’.
Luck can play a big part in this competition too, as a puncture, crash or mechanical for a team leader can see many members of the squad hold back to look after him and the whole squad can lose a lot of time as a result. Also, if a team loses a leader, like Sky did with Landa at the Giro, you can almost forget about them winning, as the focus and drive of the team evaporates
Team Sky – 13/8
A team with the GC favourite and likely top 6 finisher on all the mountain stages, including possibly winning a number of them by maybe a minute or more.. A team with Thomas, Henao, Landa, Nieve, Poels – all of whom should go well on all the key stages.
They look the most likely winning team alright, but are they any value at 13/8? It looks like they could easily take it with that team, we’ll see Landa, Henao, Nieve and Poels pulling on the climbs, some will crack and pull over, but others will finish in the top 20, maybe even the top 10 on the big stages. There are also some decent climbers in there for the TTs too so they should do alright on the two stages against the clock.
The only concerns would be some of them crashing out or getting sick, which always seems to be an issue with Sky, or that they burn matches too early on climbs chasing down attacks by all of Froome’s rivals and they end up being shelled out with lots of the final climbs still to go, losing lots of time to the likes of Astana and Movistar. This is one of the reasons why, even though Froome won the race last year, Sky lost by nearly an hour to Movistar. In fact, over the last eight years, the GC winner's team has never won the team classification, and I'm going to swerve Sky at these prices.
Astana – 7/2
Aru and Nibali – quite the headline duo.. but what can we expect from them? I’m sure Aru is well tuned up for this race, as you’d expect from an Astana man, but his form doesn’t fill me with confidence. Nibali is coming here to support Aru, but I think that once the main job is done on the big climbs he’ll ease off the gas and roll in at his leisure. They do have plenty of guys like Sky though who will be working hard in the stages, but I think as the pressure and expectations are all on Sky and Movistar, Astana will be able to sit in and take it easy on a lot of the bigger climbs. This will possibly mean that we see the likes of Fuglsang, Kangert, Rosa and Sanchez still being there close to the finish of stages and quite a few of them could place well. I also think that Nibali and Aru are possibly capable of winning stages, which will help. I think their top two men might let them down more than one might expect, but I think the rest of the squad could compensate and score well for them consistently.
Movistar – 4/1
There really isn’t much in it in the betting between Astana and Movistar, they are both generally 7/2, but Astana shade it marginally on the whole. I think it will be close on the road too, as Movistar have a good team here too, a team who are well capable of consistently scoring high places across the three weeks.
Quintana should do very well, is capable of a stage win or two and lots of top 10s, Valverde will also do well for the team as he is an incredibly consistent finisher and could nick a stage or two too. Anacona, Erviti, Herrada, the two Izagirre’s, Moreno, Oliveira – they are all superb climbers and experienced, smart riders in good form. Ion Izagirre will do well in the TTs, as will Gorka, Herrada, Moreno and Anacona will be finishing high up after looking after Quintana. And there are several riders in that lot who are capable of attacks and breakaways, to take the pressure off of Quintana, who could record great times on some stages to help with the cause.
AG2R – 8/1
Winner of this competition and the Giro’s team classification in 2014 thanks to the strong performances by Jean-Christophe Peraud, Romain Bardet, Alexis Vuillermoz and Domenico Pozzovivo, 2nd in 2013, they are a team who target this competition in races and look to have a great team here again this year. Bardet will be going for a top 6 in the GC and is capable of winning stages, Bakelants will probably go on several breaks, as will Gougeard and Gautier, and Pozzovivo, Vuillermoz and Chérel will do well in the mountain stages.
I fancy Bardet to have a great race and I think Vuillermoz, Gougeard and Pozzovivo will be in breaks that could help them move up the ranking. But are they good enough to beat the top three teams? I’m not sure..
BMC – 12/1
BMC have their ‘joint-leaders’ here with Porte and Tejay, and both of them might not only feature in the top 10 of the GC, they should both finish regularly in the top 10 or 20 of stages. Backed up by a superb team of experienced riders like Rohan Dennis, Amael Moinard, Marcus Burghardt, Brent Bookwalter and Michael Schar, who will do well in the mountains too. Dennis, Burghardt, Porte and Tejay should do well in the TTs also, so they’re a team that could surprise a few in this competition I think.
And it’s big prices after that for Tinkoff, Trek-Segafredo and the rest, but I honestly can’t see any of them featuring. The annoying thing about betting in this market though is that the vast majority of bookmakers, for some reason, have decided that they only want to offer win-only on the market, so we’re limited in our betting options here. Those who are offering e/w (Boylesports and Skybet) are only offering it on the first two, at 1/3 the odds. I'm swerving Sky though, and I'm not sure how Astana will go, so Movistar look like a 'bet to nothing' at 7/2 with Skybet - if they finish 2nd, you make a small profit, if they win, you've a 7/2 winner on top.
Recommendation:
2pts each-way on Movistar at 7/2 with Skybet