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Published on Saturday, 18 May 2019 22:04

Giro d'Italia St 9

Riccione - San Marino

Sunday 19th May, 34.7kms

The second TT of the race, and one that could really star to shape the GC ahead of the mountains to come. This is a stage that the likes of Roglic and Bob Jungels will look to try to gain more time against the mountain goats. 

It is unusal to have three TTs in a Grand Tour, but it's also unusual to have the first section of the race bookended by two TTs. That is the situation here though and it's almost as if the organisers had tried to create a route perfectly suited to Tom Dumoulin in order to tempt him to ride here. But Dumoulin has gone home so this stage has been opened up a little more, that is, if anyone can beat Roglic!

Being the main road up to the principality of San Marino, the roads are wide and well-surfaced, perfect for the strong men to lay down the power. It is a tough climb, but is preceded by 22kms of gentle uphill roads, they will have to try to balance their efforts again to make sure that they don't lose too much time on the flat parts, but keep energy in reserve for a 12km climb.

Stage 8 Review 

Not much of a break, Frapporti and Cima went up the road to waste a bit of energy but get lots of airtime, Bora and Lotto-Soudal controlled things all day. Frapporti  dropped Cima on the penultimate climb of the day and was joined by Giulio Ciccone who was after more mountain points. They pressed on, AG2R's Bidard bridged to them and the three of them built a lead of around 40 seconds with less than 20kms left to go

But Lotto-Soudal never let up, pushing at the front with Bora, and as the forecast rain hadn't materialised, 1000 hypothesis on how this stage would pan out all went out the window. There was to be no late attack from Vinceno Nibali on the descent, no attack of any sort in fact as DQS took control coming down the descent to the finish. 

But our boy Caleb was beautifully positioned throughout.. on the wheel of Ackermann, always looking in control - he was ready to repay the tremendous job done by his team-mates all day.. They straightened up for the last 250m and he was 3rd wheel.. but when they kicked with 200m to go, he showed a devastating turn of pace that got him a 2m lead, and he never relenquished it, holding Ackermann and Viviani all the way to the line.

A winner, finally - feels like an eternity, feels good to get a winner on the board. It should have been a very good day, but Viviani got up to beat Ackermann to smash the Matchbet double, which left us with only a 2.25pt profit - we could have been looking at 8.25pt profit only for one place. 

The Route

"This individual time trial is divided in two parts: the route is wavy up to the border of the Republic of San Marino, and then runs uphill, all the way to the finish. For the first 22 km, the route follows a winding and undulating profile leading to Faetano. Here, the route starts to rise, reaching double-digit gradients, all the way to Fiorentino. From here on, and until the finish, the profile is marked by climbs alternating with short counter-sloping stretches. Overall, the climb is particularly suited to rouleurs-climbers."

The first 5kms of the final climb average 6.7%, with parts hitting a high of 11%, then it flattens off for the next 5kms, with little ramps at 2-3% and even some downhill sections, before kicking up again for the last 2kms at 6.4% average. 

Contenders and Favourites

So no Tom Dumoulin, but let's go through the best TT'ers that are still here and see what we make of their chances in today's stage. 

Primoz Roglic - clearly the man to beat, he was incredible in the first TT, blowing away all his rivals by a very large amount. He set a very good pace on the flat, and he ripped it up the climb to crush Dumoulin's time. He's also won a 17km TT in Romandie and a 10km TT in Tirreno this year, this looks like another TT perfectly suited to him. One blip on his record to note though is that the last TT of this length he did, in the Tour last year over 31kms, he could only manage 8th place, 1'12" behind Dumoulin, and was beaten by Zakarin and Jungels. 

Simon Yates - 13/2 second favourite - Simon Yates, second favourite for a TT? Where did that come from? The guy couldn't TT to save his life not so long ago, apparently he has been taking TT advice over the winter from Bradley Wiggins, and all of a sudden he's smashing up the TT at Paris Nice - a flat-ish TT none the less. His performances this year had been mediocre to say the least, then he went out and did that in P-N... What can we make of his chances here? Well, who knows.. but if he beats Roglic in this I'll eat my hat. Maybe he'll finish top 3, but I'm not taking a chance on that. 

Vincenzo Nibali - third favourite for a TT??? Another WTF moment, when has Nibali ever been 3rd favourite for a TT?? Yeah he flew in that opening TT, taking the lead over Dumoulin for a while, but his TT'ing has been pretty bloody average for years. It's been six years since he's won a TT, and the last time he finished in the top 3 of a TT was in the Vuelta in 2017 when he finished in 3rd in a 40km TT, 57" behind Chris Froome. They are the only time in six years he has finished in the top 3 of a TT anywhere! Yeah, maybe he's Vincenzo version 3.0 or something this year, but I'm not backing him. 

Victor Campanaerts - great TT'er on the flat, but he'll die on the hill, he'll struggle to finish in the top 3 here I think.He also admitted as much in an interview on Eurosport two days ago, he said that this TT didn't suit him so much but he's looking forward to Verona. He's 14/1, but he'll be lucky to top 3 it I think. 

Bob Jungels - 16/1, a monster on the flat, he'll struggle a little on the climb, but not as much as some of these other guys.. He's been hiding away for the last week, only occassionally peeking out to do a bit of a turn at the front. He was a little more prominent today, almost as if he was testing the legs ahead of tomorrow, I think he'll go well. Former junior World TT champion, multiple Luxembourgian TT champion, 3rd in the hilly TT in the Giro in 2017 behind Dumoulin and Thomas over 40kms, this looks like a good test for him and he could land a top 3 at 9/4. 

Jos Van Emden - similar to Campanaerts, if this was a dead-flat TT he'd be one of the favourites, but he's 300/1 for a reason, he can't climb. 

Tao Geoghan Hart - next in the betting at 40/1, but really? Do we think Tao can win this? No. Has never won a TT, his best result in a TT is 3rd in a TT in the TOC last year, behind Van Garderen and Paddy Bevin. No, not even with Sky, sorry, Ineos's magic. 

Ion Izagirre - He did a very poor TT on the first stage, so much so that I wonder whether he was sick or something. He was fancied to go well, he didn't. He is way out of the running now thanks to a crash in stage 4 which cost him 10 minutes, he will go well on the climb, but will lose time on the flat. Will be lucky to be within a minute of Roglic. 

So there we have it, no one is going to get close to Roglic - the big question really is how big will the gaps be between the GC favourites - how much time will Miguel Angel Lopez lose? How much time will Roglic gain on Yates and Nibali? The only bet I'm remotely interested in though is Jungels for the top 3 at 9/4 and a few matchbets. 

Recommendations: 

2pts at 9/4 on Bob Jungels to finish in the top 3 with Bet365

Matchbets:

Roglic to beat the field, Jungels to beat Bilbao and Campanaerts to beat Haga - 2pts at 1.14/1