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Published on Monday, 21 May 2018 19:12

Giro d'Italia St 16

Trento to Rovereto

Tuesday 22nd May, 34.5kms 

The second TT of the race, a crucial point for some who will be fighting for overall victory or even a top 10 place. It's mostly flat, but gets a little hilly near the end, a perfect course for powerhouses like Tom Dumoulin.

The first TT saw Tom Dumoulin power his way to victory, beating the odds-on favourite Rohan Dennis by 2", with Victor Campanaerts putting in a massive ride to finish on the same time as Dennis. José Goncalves also pulled off a stunning ride, actually taking the lead at the intermediate but failing to hold his advantage to the finish. Alex Dowsett posted a great time in 5th, but it was Simon Yates in 7th, just 20" behind Dumoulin that really caught the eye, a sign of the strength he was to show in the stages to come. 

It was only 9.7kms, it was at the start of the race, but how much different could we expect this TT to be in terms of the result? Well we are now 15 stages in to the race, we've had a lot of tough riding and a lot of tired riders, how much different will results be now certain riders have real reasons to ride hard? Will some riders have been saving themselves over the last few stages to be ready to have a big go at this stage? 

Stage 15 Review

Yet another bonkers stage, yet another stage win for Simon Yates. I don't think many people saw that coming today, even if Yates is absolutely on fire. I missed a lot of the stage today, but when I tuned in Yates was up the road and Dumoulin was arguing with his colleagues about doing the chasing. He was rightly pissed off after the stage saying he's 'totally fucked now' because of the others pissing about and not wanting to help him chase Yates. He also said that Pozzo was doing 'coward pulls' at the front and not really pulling his weight, and as a result they all lost time to Yates. 

Pinot complained that Lopez and Carapaz were more interested in fighting each other for the white jersey than going after Yates, so it was really only Pinot and Dumoulin who were willing to chase. Carapaz starts going out the back door, letting the wheels go and then suddenly attacks. Dumoulin got dropped but grinded his way back to actually take 3rd and some bonus seconds. Froome struggled again today after his incredible win on Saturday, losing a minute and a half to Yates again today. 

So here we stand, Yates has been a revelation, he simply has been head and shoulders above the rest on all the climbs so far, something I don't think a lot of people saw coming, certainly not this level of superiority. He has a huge lead now on the GC, over two minutes and it is now his to lose whereas it was probably Dumouiln's to lose Sunday morning.. He's in to 1/2 to win and it's going to be very hard to shake him. The way he is riding at the moment I wouldn't be surprised if he lost less than a minute to Dumoulin in the TT or won more stages next week. 

Dumoulin isn't out of it of course, he will take a lot of time in the TT, but unless he can land a stage win with a gap in one of the last 3 mountain stages, then I think he might have a real struggle on his hands now to win it. Pinot and Pozzovivo look out of it more or less now, they're not going to take time in the TT, so if they want to try to win this race they will have to attack next week. And Chris Froome went from being back in the race Saturday night to being out of it again on Sunday night, or is he? Can he do something next week again? Who knows. 

This Giro has been bonkers so far. And it has been a bloody nightmare from a punting point of view. No big priced winners really, Froome was probably the biggest price winner so far, he was about 25/1, and no break has stuck. Again on Sunday it was massively frustrating, we had Visconti, De Marchi, Luis Leon and Hermans involved in the breaks, but the peloton just wouldn't let it go again. 

So, so annoying, you would expect a break with guys of that strength to get away, none of them were any threat on the GC, but M-S were just not willing to let it go, and I suppose, why should they, Yates is so strong, he felt that he could take the stage again, and he set his team in motion to go set him up and he did the rest. He now looks like he might take the KOM jersey too if he keeps going like this and could even take the points jersey if he keeps winning stages.. Or worst case, he might push Modolo out of the money for us in 3rd behind Viviani and Bennett.

And as for Woods, I now am of the opinion the guy is just thick. He said after attacking on the Zoncolan that he had got a bit excited and that he was going to wait on Sunday as he thought the finish suited him a lot better, and what does he do Sunday? He attacks miles out. And gets blown out a little later and finished over 4 mins down. And that was after EF had helped with the chase, after missing the break again.. just appalling tactical work from EF again. 

The only good thing to come out of today was Lopez beating Pozzo at 7/4, he saved us a little, the win bets tanked and Schachmann decided to have a day off and finished way down the pack. Aru looked like he was on the verge of abandoning today, apparently his team car had to convince him to stay in the race. So I think the 'no stage win' bet is pretty safe at least..

The Route

The ITT starts and finishes within urban areas, heading south from Trento, home of the Mosers, to the picturesque town of Rovereto. The route is quite bumpy and technical, but the central part along the Adige river is mainly straight and flat. Starting in Trento (Piazza del Duomo), the route encounters stretches of stone paving, followed by roundabouts and traffic islands.

The stage travels on wide, well paved and mostly straight streets (with just a few bends); the roadway only narrows at points while crossing urban areas. The first intermediate check comes after 12.7kms in the town of Aldeno, at the foothills of the Mount Bondone climb. Up to here it's all about power and technique as the course is almost totally flat. 

Before the second time keeping point the road starts to get a little hillier from the 24km point onwards. There is a short climb followed by a short descent and a technical bend, then the second time check after 25.6kms, before going back onto straight roads all the way to the finish. The route rolls past the Adige river and reaches Rovereto. The roads are narrower here, and a number of 90-degree bends lead into wider avenues, heading for the finish. 

Contenders

Tom Dumoulin is odds on at 10/11 to win this TT, and he really has to you'd think to give himself a chance of retaining his title. But not only does he have to win it, I think he'll have to win it by about 3 mins or more from Yates.. I think he'll need over 30" of a buffer for the later stages in the race when Yates will go on the attack again. He showed them all in the first TT in Jerusalem that he is the best TT'er here, he's had a rough time of it over the last two weeks at times, but the World TT champion is in such great form it's hard to see anyone beating him. 

This distance is even better than the first TT for him, he won the World Championships on a course over 31kms, this is just 3.5kms longer, and that day he beat Roglic by almost a minute and Froome by 1'21" and Tony Martin by 1'39". Ok, that was a very different profile with the big climb at the end of the course, but he showed in the two TTs in the Giro last year just how much better he is than almost everyone else on a TT bike. He won the first wonTT over 39kms by a country mile, Geraint Thomas the closest to him and he was 49" back. 5th place rider Vasil Kiryienka was 2 mins back..

That day he beat Adam Yates by 2'39", and although they are not the same sort of TT riders and were in totally different situations with regards to race pressure and motivation, it gives you the idea of the type of time gaps that could be between Dumoulin and the climbers around him. In the second TT he finished 2nd to Van Emden, but he was just happy to get around safely in a time that won him the race overall. The gaps to the TTers were substantial again though, more than 90" to most of them. He is under a lot of pressure here though, make no mistake about that, he knows he has to deliver a massive TT here or he can say goodbye to his chances of winning.

Yates is starting behind him too, so he won't know his targets, he's just going to have to go flat out and try to put almost 4" a kilometre in to Yates. If he starts to post crushing times though it will motivate him and may demoralise Yates a little. So he's got to go out hard from the gun. 

Rohan Dennis was the odds-on favourite for the first TT and let his backers down (us included) as he was crushed by a flying Dumoulin. Well, I say crushed, it was only 2", but even before that he was almost beaten by Victor Campanaerts who finished hundredths of a second behind him. Dennis obviously is one of the fastest men on a TT bike here, he's had a rough time too, but he still is within touching distance of the top 10. A good TT here will see him take 2-3 mins out of all the climbers above him and he could move up in to the top 6 or so.

That is a huge motivation for him, he came here hoping to give the GC a go, and although he has struggled a little on some of the mountain stages, I still have been pretty impressed by him, he's done better than some were expecting. This TT is right up his street though, but in getting himself slim and mountains-ready, has he lost some of the TT power? Even if he has lost a little, he still will be better than probably everyone else here, with the possible exception of Dumoulin. The only thing that might separate them is Dumoulin's desire to crush everybody here, particularly the climbers who pissed him off on stage 15. 

Victor Campanaerts came very close to winning the first TT in Jersusalem, something he had targeted and prepared heavily for. He was really pissed off that he missed out by such a close margin, he gave it a real good go. He was like a sulking child the next stage when he just rode off the front of the peloton on his own, but since then he has disappeared, finishing closer to last every day than first. He has almost certainly been just saving his legs for this, if he came close to the top two in the last TT and has taken it easy since, compared to the effort they have had to put in, then maybe he might just catch them out this time. 

That might be a logical way of looking at it, but the reality is that they have far more motivation than he has you'd think and they are just a different level of class to him too. Campanaerts has never beaten Dennis in 6 TT head-to-heads and has not beaten Dumoulin in 4, the closest he has ever got to either of them was the opening TT here. And I think it will be the same here, he could be a gallant runner-up to the top two again, but at 11/2 he doesn't exactly offer much e/w value does he.. I think he has a big chance of a top 3 finish though, if you get evens or better on Betfair, take it. 

Tony Martin didn't do too badly in the first TT in Jerusalem, coming home in 9th, but at the same time, the former World Champion can't have been too happy with 9th place in a TT. He has faded down the TT ranks in recent years, but this distance is far more up his street than the shorter opening TT. The longer, straighter roads are far more up his street too, where he is able to put his massive diesel engine to work and he should go well in this TT too I think, he's probably capable of a top 6.

In head-to-heads with Campanaerts though Campa has beaten him 3 times out of the 7 times they've met, with Campa beating him twice this year already, in the Algarve over 20kms and the first TT here. Martin has poked his head out a few times in attack attempts, but so far has not been given any leeway and has for the most part been anonymous. Hard to know how he'll go, but I think he'll scrape in to 5th place. 

Jos Van Emden had an absolute stinker in the first TT, he finished way down in 33rd place, he had a terrible day. Surely he can't go that badly again? He's 14/1 if you think he can turn it around, or you might get a decent price for him (around 3/1 I'd need) on Betfair for a top 3. 

Chris Froome has certainly blown hot and cold in this race, hot on the Zoncolan when he 'blew them all away' and gained a handful of seconds, cold the next day when he lost a minute and a half on an easier finish.. He crashed before the first TT so it's hard to know just how well or badly he'd have gone without that incident, and as far as Sky and Froome are concerned he is not out of this race at all. A good TT will lift him above a lot of the climbers, and if he can pull off a few more Zoncolans then he might even make the podium.

But how will he go here? You can be sure that he and Sky will have reccied every yard of this course and he'll know what to expect. But I'm not sure he has the top-end power that Dennis or Dumoulin have at the moment, he was ok spinning a granny gear up the Zoncolan, but when he has been required to grind a harder gear he has struggled. He might be ok for 4th place though, he could slip in between Campanaerts and Martin. 

Ryan Mullen will like this stage a lot more than the prologue, where he went out fast and then blew up in the second half. This distance is much more his style though, but again, hard to see him break above the guys mentioned above. I think he is good for a 6th to 10th place finish though, unless he blows up in the second half of the stage again. 

Vasil Kiryienka, Luis Leon Sanchez, Alex Dowsett, Remi Cavagna, Woet Poels, José Goncalves and Maximilian Schachmann will all be fighting out the rest of the top ten places, but hard to see any of them make the podium either. 

The weather will be important to keep an eye on, it's going to be raining in the morning, easing a little as the afternoon goes on. It might favour the late starters a little, depending on whether the roads start to dry out a little, or if it keeps raining all day, then they might have more standing water to deal with. It's a pretty straight-forward course though so they shouldn't have too many problems either way, and the wind is so low (3-5 mph) that it will hardly affect them either you'd think.. but apparently it switches from being a head-wind to a tail wind very late in the afternoon, so that could favour the late starters a little more. 

I think Dumoulin will lay down a marker tomorrow though. He will want to show those stupid climbers who wouldn't collaborate with him who's boss and will look to put minutes in to them. He will have to go some to get ahead of Yates, I think he'll just about take pink but it might be less than 20". I also wouldn't be surprised if Yates blows the doors off again and only ships 30" or so to him, he has looked so ridiculously strong even on the flat and downhill sections. 

I think Rohan Dennis will be close to Dumoulin again and is good for a top 3, if you are feeling brave he's 1.52 on Betfair and that looks a pretty decent bet. But I think I will go for Campanaerts instead to land a top 3 for us and some pretty obvious looking matchbet accas to try to get a decent return. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on Tom Dumoulin at 11/10 on Betfair

2pts on Campanaerts if you can get around evens on Betfair to come in the top 3 (will update this later again if more liquidity comes in)

Matchbets

Dowsett to beat Cavagna, Froome to beat Schachmann, Mullen to beat Pedersen, Yates to beat Pozzovivo and Campanaerts to beat JVE - 3pts at 2.42/1

Add Martin to beat Kiryienka - 2pts at 4.14/1

Add Ben O'Connor to beat Carapaz - 1pt at 7.57/1