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- Published on Thursday, 18 July 2019 19:10
TDF 2019 Stage 13
Pau - Pau
Fri 19th July, 27kms ITT
The only individual TT of the race sees the riders take a trip around Pau, a town that's no stranger to the TDF. In 1981, the last time there was a TT here, Bernard Hinault took the win, the yellow jersey and wore it all the way to Paris.
Pau has been a host town of the Tour the third most often in all of France, after Paris and Bordeaux. It's that perfect stop-off point to enter, or leave the Pyrenées, being within touching distance of a lot of the key Pyrenéan climbs.
This is going to be a crucial TT - Geraint Thomas could put the nail in the coffin of quite a few of his rivals here if he has a good day on the bike, most notably Pinot, Uran, Martin, Bardet and Fuglsang, and he should put time in to Bernal, Kruijswijk, Quintana, Mas, Yates and Buchmann. Alaphilippe will put up a good fight, especially given how well he's going, and the fact he's wearing yellow will find a few extra seconds for him. He holds a lead of 1'12" over Thomas though, so it's likely he'll be still wearing yellow as they enter the Pyrenées on Saturday.
Stage 12 Review
There was a massive battle to get in the break today, and it took 40kms before a break finally got away. And it was a huge one – 40 riders got away in a long line, as Ineos sat up and blocked the road finally. And incredibly, and very annoyingly despite picking 6 riders none of them made the break. Turns out Vincenzo Nibali had stomach problems this morning, great timing when we decide to back him for the stage.. What can you do..
Peter Sagan, Michael Matthews, Matteo Trentin, Dylan Groenewegen, Alexander Kristoff and Sonny Colbrelli made it, so had their own mini race for the intermediate sprint with 78kms to go, won once again by Sagan, as Matthews sat it out again.
DQS and Movistar helped at the front of the peloton to manage the gap though, and for a long time it was kept around 3’20”, but suddenly, when they approached the first climb they stopped pulling – and no one else was willing to take it up and the gap jumped to 6 mins, then 8 and it was all over.
There were quite a few decent climbers in that group too, notably Simon Yates, Pelle Bilbao, Imanol Erviti, Rui Costa and Nico Roche, and it was Yates and Roche kicked it off, but Roche got dropped as Yates and Muhlberger pressed on, with Bilbao eventually catching them. Suddenly the gap to the chasers was a minute and uncatchable on that downhill run to the finish.
And in the end, it was the man that got through that final bend first that won it, Simon Yates, the outsider in the betting of the three outsprinting the other two. A terrible day with the bets, we were totally out of it as soon as the break went and we had no one in there. I mentioned Yates possibly doing something like that, but I didn’t really think he would go.. And we picked the wrong Astana man, it was Bilbao went and not Izagirre.
The other big story of the day though was the ‘mysterious’ abandon of Rohan Dennis, when nobody, not even the team seemed to know where he was, or what happened to him. Maybe he had the same stomach troubles as Nibali was rumoured to have today, but it couldn’t have come at a worse time for him or the team, on the eve of the TT which he was expected to win.
It’s not the first time that he’s pulled out of a big race just before a TT he was expected to win, he abandoned on the day of the TT in the vuelta two years ago when he was 2/5 favourite, causing consternation in the betting and a very nice profit was made by those of us quick enough to jump on Froome before the bookies could cut his price from 7/2..
Latest reports coming out now were he stopped at the side of the road, had a big argument with the team car, the car left him expecting him to continue and they are saying that they don’t know why he stopped.. “It certainly wasn’t to do with his condition”… All very strange.
The Route
A clockwise loop south of the town of Pau over 27kms, not too long, and not too short. It looks mostly a pretty flat course on the profile, but there are some lumps and bumps along the way to get over, with the climb up towards the first check point for example averaging 4.3% for 3kms. There is also a climb up to the second check point which is short at around a kilometre, but is reasonably steep at around 7%, a painful little kicker 16kms in to the test.
The last 10kms are more or less flat, until they hit the 1km to go marker, where the road starts to rise a little. The last kilometre averages around 3%, but there is a short, very steep part to get through with about 400m to go that hits 17%.. A nice little sting in the tail for them. The final 200m are flat. The road does start to twist and turn a lot as they approach the last 3kms, with 7 really sharp bends to negotiate - whoever can accelerate through those bends the fastest could make up seconds on some of their rivals.
They enter that steep 17% kick after a sharp left turn (first pic below), so they won't be able to carry much momentum in to it, it's going to need a sharp, explosive effort to get over it as fast as possible, you can see how steep it is in the second pic below. Then at the top after about 100m they turn sharply right again, then 200m sharply left on to the finishing straight.
Route Map
Profile
Last Kms
Contenders and Favourites
Two battles today then, one between the TT specialists who have been hiding away and biding their time waiting for this one and one between the GC men.
I had written about 500 words on Dennis and his chances of winning this, but that was a total waste of time seeing as he pulled out of today's stage.
According to the ProCyclingStats rankings, the second best TTer in the race is Michal Kwiatkowski.. There sometimes is a worry with guys like Kwiato for Ineos that they will not go full gas in at TT with all the work that is still to come from them, and I think that could be even more the case this time, seeing as we are going up the Tourmalet the very next day and a beast of a stage on Sunday too.
Kwiato really seems to ride wildly erratically in TTs, and it looks like it's down to motivation and/or team orders. In Paris Nice in a TT over 25kms he finished 3rd to keep himself in yellow, and in Itzulia he finished 3rd to take 3rd in the GC, whereas in the Dauphiné, where he had nothing to ride for other than training, he finished over 5 minutes behind WVA.
He can also be used as a marker for Thomas though, they are similar in ability and Kwiato is going off 49 places before Thomas, as he is over 38 minutes down on the GC - it's almost like it was planned, Kwiato will have finished by the time G starts and the team can relay info to G along the way on where to go hard or not etc.. So I think he will go hard, but not hard enough to trouble the winner of this stage, team orders will say 'Give G a marker, but hold a little back for the days ahead'.
Geraint Thomas is also one of the strongest TT riders in the race, and his motivation goes way beyond winning the stage. This is a chance for him to kill off a lot of his opponents, there might be only a few within two minutes of him by the end of this stage. He’s got 1’12” to make up on Alaphilippe, and although he might not take the jersey off him today, he should come within 30” or so of doing it.
He is a former British TT champion of course, and multiple world champion on the track, and although his TT results this year are pretty mediocre, this is going to be a very different situation, and you would think, result. He was absolutely flying don’t forget in that final 31km TT in the Tour last year, before Sky started playing games and tried to let Froome win, but they were both mugged by Dumoulin.
He is second last rider off, he will have all the time checks and he said today on Eurosport that they have ridden the route 'a few times' and will ride it again tomorrow morning. He sounded confident and said he can't wait to get stuck in now. He was backed a little earlier from 5/2 in to 2/1, but is back out around 9/4 now. He will probably be Van Aert's closest challenger..
Speaking of Wout Van Aert, he doesn't appear on the PCS list until position 73... This is clearly an anomaly of age and the number of races he's actually done, the way he rode in that TT in the Dauphiné was incredible - he beat (albeit an injured) Dumoulin by FORTY SEVEN SECONDS. To put it in context, there were 14 riders within 47" of Dumoulin, with time gaps of 2 to 5 seconds between most of them. Tejay Van Garderen came closest to him, yet he was 31" back, and Yates, Fuglsang, Porte, Pinot and Alaphilippe were all around a minute back.
If he turns up and rides a race like that, he could very well win this TT too - and the bookies are running scared of him, he's a paltry 4/7 to win this TT. He has shown so much in this race to suggest he is not slowing down, beasting it in the TTT to help them win, beasting it at the front on several of the leadouts for the sprints, and winning that sprint brilliantly on stage 10.
He's got some fast riders going in front of him in Tratnik, Kamna, Politt and Van Baarle, he will have some real carrots to go after there. He's on probably the fastest TT bike in the race and Jumbo are also seemingly after nailing how to do a decent TT this year. He will also be a useful marker for Kruijswijk later on and I don't think they'll be asking him to take it easy, he really won't be of much help in the mountains in the days to come.
Third on the PCS list is Jonathan Castroviejo, and I think we can copy and paste from Kwiato, he'll be going hard, but not 100%. He is Spanish TT champ, but that isn't saying much, and he has been pretty poor in TTs this year, not good enough for a top 3 here.
Nelson Oliveira is the Movistar equivalent of Castro and Kwiato, he will be needed in the days to come to control the peloton and set up potential attacks for Nairo and Landa, and his results this year don't suggest he'll be landing a top 3 here.
The bookies third favourite though is Tony Martin at 14/1 and although he has not been the Martin of old and doesn't look like he will win this TT, he might be capable of fighting it out for that 3rd place on the podium. He too has looked very strong when towing the peloton along for mile after mile, and of course helped the team win the TTT. His results this season have been pretty average but he did win the German TT championships once again a month ago, so he can't be far off the sort of level required to beat most of these guys.
As for the other TT specialists in the race, well you have the likes of Yves Lampaert of Deceuninck, one of the strongest TT’ers in the peloton and who won the 19km TT in the Tour de Suisse a few weeks back. He also finished 1st in two of the three Hammer Series TT races in Holland and was 5th in the TT in Tirreno. He was miles off the pace in the second TT in the Tour last year though, if he rides like that he won’t be winning here, but at 22/1 he might go close to a place.
You also have Stefan Kung, who I had forgotten was even in this race he’s been so anonymous. Like Dennis was, he has been hiding away waiting for this TT. The three time Swiss TT champion started the season well with a win in the 20km TT in the Tour of the Algarve, but since then he’s had a number of top tens, but nothing close to a win. He was expected to go well in the TT in Romandie, but only finished 6th, 22” down on Roglic, and similarly in the Tour de Suisse TT over 19kms he was only 7th. He has been made the 20/1 3rd favourite though, so the bookies think he'll be close.
Kasper Asgreen is the reigning Danish TT champ, and has said that this is his big target in this race. He didn’t have a great start to the race, crashing in the 3rd stage, but by the looks of how he has been driving the peloton in the last few days, he seems to be over it. He was 2nd and 5th in the two TTs in the Tour de Suisse, the longer 19km TT obviously suiting him better. He was 10th in the second TT in the Vuelta last year, I think he can top 10 again here, but a win is probably out of the question.
A rider who beat him in the TDS and finished 2” behind him in the Algarve is Sunweb’s Soren Kragh Andersen. The young Dane finished 3rd and 4th in the two TTs in the Tour de Suisse, but in Tirreno he was a poor 33rd, 31” behind Campanaerts. He should go well, but I’m not sure he’ll be on the podium.
And the only rider I think could challenge the top 3 is Chad Haga, who also has been totally anonymous and saving himself for this TT too. The American riding for Sunweb pulled off a major shock in the Giro, winning the final TT, beating Campanaerts by 4". But he had given a bit of a warning about how good his TT legs were when he finished 6th in the first TT, just 10" off of 3rd place. He has been allowed do his own thing in this race, coming in way down the field every day, it's all about this stage for him, and he'll be going all out to win it.
It's not too dissimilar a course to the US nationals last year when he finished second, and the man he finished 2nd too, Joey Rosskopf looks a bit over-priced at 125/1. Overpriced, but not worth backing I think as I can't see him in the top 3 - a top 10 is possible though.
What about Egan Bernal? How is he going to fare? Well, I don't expect him to be given team orders to take it easy. He will be going full gas to try to put as big a gap as possible between himself and the rest of the GC men, just in case anything were to happen to Thomas in the next week.
And Steven Kruijswijk, Adam Yates, Richie Porte and the rest will just be looking to try to limit their losses to Ineos. Wilko Kelderman also looks massively overpriced at 300/1, he has been the Dutch TT champion and has a lot of top 5 placings in TTs to his name over the years. No harm in a nibble at 300/1
Starting this preview last night I thought Dennis would be favourite and maybe Van Aert or Thomas 2nd favourite, but I didn't foresee WVA being the 7/10 (pushed out a little since I started writing) favourite to win this. Thomas has backed a little from 5/2 to 2/1, and it looks a two-horse race according to the bookies. You have to say that Van Aert does look the most likely winner - if he turns up and rides like he did in the Dauphiné he might win by 20" again. And he has looked so strong.. and he has the added confidence after winning a stage.. it all points to WVA, but I also like Haga as an outsider to take him on at 22/1.
In fact, Betway have gone 5/6 just after I posted this, so definitely take that.. He's 8/13 with Bet365
Recommendations:
3pts win on Wout Van Aert at 5/6 with Betway
0.5pts e/w on Chad Haga at 28/1 with Bet365
0.1pts e/w on Wilko Kelderman at 300/1 with Bet365
Matchbets:
Soren Kragh to beat Schachmann and Haga to beat Scully - 3pts at evens with Bet365
Kruijswijk to beat Fuglsang and Bernal to beat Pinot - 2pts at 5/4