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- Published on Thursday, 18 August 2016 23:40
Vuelta a España Jersey Betting
Who's going to win the other key jerseys?
The Vuelta does its own thing with regards to the colour of its leader's jersey - no TDF yellow for the Spaniards, instead it's a patriotic red jersey that the leader of the Tour of Spain wears.
It makes it feel a bit odd when you write that so-and-so has gone in to the red jersey, but good on them I say, there is no rule in cycling that says everyone has to copy the Tour de France! And it's not the only jersey in the Vuelta that gets a change of colour, with the King of the Mountains jersey a distinctive blue polka-dot. They have stuck with the more conventional green for the Points leader's jersey though which is a bit disappointing!
Like in the Tour, these competitions are just as hard to predict, if not harder than the overall GC winner. In the GC at least you can probably narrrow it down to about four or five guys. The KOM jersey in the Vuelta could genuinely be won by about 25 guys, and it is a guessing game as to whether one of the GC favourites wins it by accident or design or whether a non-GC climber decides to go for it early, builds a decent lead and then gets in the breaks of the day on some of the bigger scoring stages to seal it.
The Points jersey isn't as bad, but there is going to be a battle between sprinters/puncheurs and GC riders as stages are awarded equal points, regardless of the type of finish in the Vuelta, very different to the Tour where sprint stages are awarded more points.
Points Jersey
Points Jersey
The Points competition in the Vuelta isn't really a sprinters competition as such as the mountainous nature of the Vuelta means most of the big sprinters give it a skip. Also, the Points Jersey in the Vuelta differs from the Tour in the way that points are awarded to the winners of stages. In the Tour they award more points to sprint stages than to mountain stages, but in the Vuelta the same amount of points are awarded to each stage winner, so you therefore get more of the GC contenders in the running for the points jersey.
This was to the detriment of John Dekenkolb in 2012 when he won no fewer than five stages, yet only finished 4th in the points competition as he was nowhere to be seen once the road tilted upwards. It was very clear last year too how much the GC men/climbers have an edge in this race when Valverde won from Rodriguez, Chaves, Dumoulin, Roche and Aru with Degenkolb in 7th place.
Sprinters can win it though, as Degenkolb showed in 2013 when he won it by 23 points from Valverde, with Contador, Froome and Rodriguez behind him. Mark Cavendish also won it in 2010.
The Contenders
Alejandro Valverde - Last year I had 4pts on him at 5/2 and he duly did the business, but boy was it a close-run thing - he was 2pts behind Rodriguez going in to the final sprint stage in Madrid, but a brilliant move by Movistar at the intermediate sprint with 45kms gone saw a team time trial to the line with Rojas and Ventoso leading out Valverde and taking the 4, 2 and 1 points to steal the jersey by just 2pts.
With the nature of the course, with 10 summit finishes and plenty more climbs out of the road, I think the GC candidates will be fighting it out for the Green Jersey again this year like last year. And who better to be at the finish in regular sprint stages, uphill sprint stages and tough summit finishes other than Valverde again. I think he has a massive chance of adding to his incredible record in the points competition in the Vuelta.
His record reads as follows: 1st ('15), 2nd ('14), 1st ('13), 1st ('12), 2nd ('09), 3rd ('08), 3rd ('06) and 2nd ('03) - Every time he has completed a Vuelta he has finished in the top 3 in the Points competition which is astonishing. He is perfect for it and he is in great form too, as his 3rd in San Sebastian showed. The only issue will be whether he is made work his ass off again for Quintana, but even doing that last year he still was able to pick up enough points to win it.
Chris Froome - Like Valverde, he should be there or thereabouts on all the summit finishes and should pick up lots of points on the mountainous days. He may even do well on some of the shorter hilly sprint finishes if they become a GC battle, but he will not be involved in anything resembling a flat sprint. The two times he has completed the Vuelta he has done well in this competition - 6th in 2012 and 4th in 2014, he crashed out of course last year. He should take at least one stage victory you'd think and will be in the top 5 on most mountain stages, unless the wheels really come off for him, which can happen as we saw last year.
It won't be a primary target for Froome though, but like with the KOM jersey in the Tour, he could win it by accident just by winning stages.
Nairo Quintana - If Froome and Valverde are possibly going to be in the mix because of stage wins and high finishes, then surely Quintana will be too if he wants to win this race. The little man will not score many points outside of the big stages though so I can't seen him winning this competition, even at 10/1. I'd rather back him for the KOM e/w.
Alberto Contador - winner of the points competition in 2012, 3rd in 2014, on tough, hilly courses like this year's he will score points.. He is well capable of a stage win or more and will be in the top 6 in many others. It all depends I think on how he's going in the GC battle - if he's leading, he might be happy to let breakaways or other lower guys take places, seconds and points so as to protect his GC lead, if he's not, and needing to chase time and bonuses, then we might see a Contador going for everything. I think he is capable of a big showing in the GC, and as a consquence he should be right up there in the points competition too.
Esteban Chaves - like all those before, if he's in the hunt for the GC, then he will be in the hunt for the points competition. But I worry that he doesn't have the killer instinct of say someone like Valverde from a points comp point of view, he may focus all of his energy and efforts on trying to do as well as he can in the GC.. I can't see him sprinting for intermediates for example, unless he has crashed out of contention in the GC early on and looks to take a jersey of a different colour.. but if that's the case, he'd be better off trying to go for the KOM jersey maybe.
Others? - Well that's the GC men more or less covered, but watch out also for the likes of Steven Kruijswijk and Louis Meintjes if they are up there attacking and racing for stages etc. As for the sprinters chances? Well, firstly, there is no world-class sprinter lining up here, they are all second division sprinters really you could say. There are not a lot of chances for them, and we could well see the points shared out amongt the likes of Gianni Meersman, Tosh Van der Sande, Kristian Sbaragli can sprint for points and the likes of Gerrans, Felline and Philippe Gilbert will be to the fore on the puncheurs stages.
I can't see past the GC men though and Valverde looks rock solid again, with an each-way on Contador a back-up if you can get 4/1 or better. I was thinking Valverde would be 2/1 or shorter, so the 7/2 he is now looks a bet.
Recommendations:
2pts win on Alejandro Valverde at 7/2 with various
1pt each-way on Alberto Contador if he goes out to 4/1
KOM Jersey
King of the Mountains Betting Preview
The KOM competition in the Vuelta is similar to the KOM in the Tour de France in that the leader wears a polka-dot jersey, but it differs in that it's blue polka-dots and not red! It hasn't always been that way though - ever since it was first introduced in 1935 it was actually a green jersey the leader wore, until it was changed to an orange jersey in 2006 and then in 2010 it became a blue polka-dot jersey.
Spaniards have won the jersey on 48 times out of 69, with José Luis Laguia winning it a record 5 times. Omar Fraile added to that record last year, winning it by 19pts from Ruben Plaza. It was the opposite to the Points competition in that there were no GC men to be seen near the top, it was all breakaway riders who led the way, with Rodriguez the first in the rankings in 12th place. It's what happens when teams focus just on the GC and aren't worried about stage wins and KOM jerseys..
There are also differences in the categories, in that the Vuelta has four categories compared to five in the Tour, Cat 1,2, 3 and Especiale climbs, but when a stage finishes on the top of an Esp climb more point are awarded. More points again for the Cima Alberto Fernández for the highest point in the race, this year on the Queen stage on the Col d'Aubisque. The full points breakdown are above to the right.
There are 20 Cat 3 climbs, 15 Cat 2 climbs, 17 Cat 1 climbs, 2 Especiale climbs and the one Cima Alberta climb. Luis Leon Sanchez was a bit of a surprise winner two years ago on 58pts from Contador and Valverde, he might be up for it again, but it's more likely he'll be working for Lopez. The big stages to watch out for are stages 20 and 14 for the "Group 5" Especiale climbs, and stages 6, 13 and 15 in 'Group 4', and stages 3,4 7, 9, 10, 12 and 17 for the 'Group 3' stages.
The Contenders
I say it every time - the KOM is an almost impossible competition to predict, unless you have inside information from a team meeting that says rider X is going to be going all out for the jersey. There are just so many variables, so many different ways that it can be won, so many factors like whether the GC men race for stages every day or they let the breakaway riders just fight amongst themselves. You can end up with a situation like last year, where Fraile was probably 66/1 or so, and he finished ahead of Ruben Plaza who probably was 100/1 and Frank Schleck who was probably 150/1.
7/1 shot Nairo Quintana finished 51st in the competition with just 2 points!! It could well be very much more of the same this year.. But with so many summit finishes, and with the Queen stage to the Col d'Aubisque likely to be won by a GC rider (it is the Cimo Alberto Fernandez this year) and the final monster stage on stage 20 also scoring highly with the Esp Climb to the Aito de Aitana, we might see the GC men a lot closer this year.
Nairo Quintana, Alberto Contador, Chris Froome, Esteban Chaves - all could score lots of mountain points.. but are any of them any value? Not a great deal, even though Froome and Quintana are both 18/1, I just can't see them picking up enough points along the way, they won't be chasing them that's for sure.
Other riders that catch the eye? Omar Fraile again could go for it, both he and Igor Anton could have free reign to go for breaks and stage wins for Dimension Data. Fraile crashed out of the Giro early on so never had a chance to go for the mountains points. He did warm up for this race though by taking the KOM jersey in the Vuelta a Burgos a few weeks back so I think he'll be up for it again this year. 11/2 is a lot shorter than I thought he'd be, I was thinking 12/1 or so, but I think it's worth a bet as you know he'll definitely be up for it.
Louis Meintjes is another rider that caught my eye, he has been added to the race despite a hard Tour de France a few weeks back, but Lampre's team press release says that Meintjes and Grmay will be stage hunting so it may be that we see Meintjes up the road a lot and maybe he could ride for the KOM jersey too. He looks very big at 100/1.
Caja Rural have about four riders who could go for it, including Hugh Carthy, Jose Goncalves, Angel Madrazo and David Arroyo - take your pick! Out of the lot I'd probably plump for Goncalves. Pierre Latour for AG2R could try the break a few days, but I think he might look to gain experience of racing in a Grand Tour's GC group for as long as possible, so maybe not for the KOM.
Miguel Angel Lopez possibly might go for stage victories depending on how the GC is going for him, and one other that interests me a little is Darwin Atapuma for BMC. It's hard to know whether he'll be riding for GC, riding in support of Tejay Van Garderen, (or the other way around) or whether he'll be stage hunting.. He is a great climber and loves a breakaway though, so he could well be a candidate to throw his hat in to the ring for the KOM competition. 3rd in the KOM in the Giro (and 9th in the GC), 3rd in the KOM in the Tour de Suisse, he knows how to score points and could well finish on the podium again. He's a solid 14/1 across all bookies more or less.
And that's about it really, I can't see many others challenging for it, but it could be a lot closer this year between the GC men and the breakaway bandits.
Recommendations:
1pt each-way on Omar Fraile at 11/2 with Bet365
0.5pts each-way on Darwin Atapuma at 14/1 with various