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Published on Friday, 10 May 2019 10:10

Giro - Young Riders 

Can anyone beat Lopez? 

This time last year Miguel Angel Lopez was an un-backable 1/5 to win this competition, but going in to stage 13 he was 1'21" behind the revalation Richard Carapaz. 

He took over the lead though on stage 14 after finishing 4th on the Zoncolan and never looked back. But it was close - a lot closer than most would have expected for a 1/5 favourite, as he won by just 47" in the end. My fancy (without Lopez) at 12/1 Ben O'Connor was going really well, was 3rd in the young riders but crashed out on stage 19 when just 2'51" down on Lopez. 

And so Lopez is the hot favourite again this year, this time he's 4/11, almost twice the price he was last year! He's probably going to win it, I think he'll definitely be top six in the GC, possibly even top 3, so it's unlikely that any of the other young guys will beat him. And the bookies at the moment are offering win-only on the market, so if you're taking a punt on someone else, you have to hope Lopez falls away as you can't even bet each-way. 

Ivan Sosa is the second favourite for it at 6/1 with Tao GH 10/1 and Pavel Sivakov at 18/1 and the Sky boys could have a lot of fun in this race. They don't really have a leader it seems and all of them, including Eddie Dunbar at 150/1 could kick off on a number of these stages. but will Sosa be looking to have some fun on stages or will he be riding to try to win the GC? Will he even finish his very first GT at just 21 years of age? Tao at least has a Vuelta in his legs from last year, he might offer a little bit more value if they come out with the 'Without Lopez' market I've asked Bet365 to add. 

Sam Oomen is a great climber and will go very well you'd think, but he'll be working for TomDum.. Will that see him come home with the leaders most days, or will he be working his legs off and then dropping back late in the stage, losing lots of time? Well he finished 9th in the GC last year, that came from riding all the way to the finish and acheiving the best possible placing on every stage. If he was to finish around 9th this year there might only be Lopez ahead of him. 

As I said earlier, Ben O'Connor is a rider I like a lot and I think he was very unlucky last year. Sitting in 12th place in the GC before he crashed out, he had been a model of consistency, up until the Zoncolan he was only 1'29" behind Lopez. He's not a bad time triallist, he took 49" out of Lopez in the 43km Stage 16 TT last year, so he could take quite a bit of time out of Lopez and the other climbers across three TTs here. 

When asked recently whether he think he'll be a marked man this year he replied "No – because I've done nothing this year! I crashed at the Volta a Catalunya, and then just kind of got through the race. But then, on the last stage, I was caught up in that other massive fall with Bardet and Geschke, when that stage was the one I was most keen to try to show myself on, and then didn't have the chance. And then at the Tour of Turkey, I was kind of below par. Yet my form is pretty much where it was last year; it just hasn't worked out as well as it did last year ahead of the Giro."

He's also said that he's been doing a lot of 40-50 minute climb training in the mountains in Andorra around where he lives, to prepare for the long climbs of the final week, something he didn't really do last year ahead of the Giro. He is confident of a top showing again and I think he'll go well too, I'm going to back him without Lopez again at a good price of 4/1 and I took 5/1 on him for a top 10 placing on the overall GC betting, I think he's capable of it. 

Recommendations:

1pt win on Ben O'Connor (without Lopez) at 4/1