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Published on Wednesday, 30 August 2017 22:23

Vuelta Stage 12

Motril to Antequera

Thurs 31st August, 160.1kms 

A tale of two halves as the route map is divided in to 80kms of almost totally flat roads as they run along the coast towards Malaga, and then 80kms of lumpy hills as they head north towards the finish in Antequera.

It's a medium mountain stage apparently and really is a day that will be boring for 80kms and then wild for the last 80kms. the break will quite possibly take a long time to form, we could see a wild opening 50kms or so. But it could well be a day that the break fights it out for the win though with the last 80kms being as they are, if they have a 5-6 min lead over the Puerto del Leon they could well hold on all the way to the finish.

Then it will be a battle on the Puerto del Torcal, which will definitely separate the men from the boys and we could well see a solo rider hammering it down the other side to try to hold on for victory. 

Stage 11 Review

We got a break, Anton was in it, but they were never let get far enough in front. Surprisingly there was no sign of Majka, the 9/2 favourite for the stage, and in fact, when we caught a glimpse of him later on on the climb he was going out the back door pretty early. When Orica and Sky started chasing hard it was all over for the break, they cut the lead from over 4 minutes to just a minute by the time they hit the first of the final climbs.

After that it was just chaos, with riders all over the road. Bardet attacked away from the break, Atapuma bridged to him, Simon Yates attacked out the peloton and bridged to them, Sky pushed hard and suddenly the peloton was in bits with a long way still to go. Roche was in trouble, Chaves was in trouble, Aru was in trouble.. De La Cruz punctured at the worst possible moment but did his best to get back to the leaders, catching and dropping a lot of his rivals in the closing 8kms.

Up front, Froome did his usual trick of looking like he was in trouble, but then was one of the few who was able to go after Nibali when he stepped on the gas in the last 2kms. But Superman Lopez was too strong for all of them, it was an incredible victory for the little Colombian, he dropped most of the best climbers in the world and soloed to victory by 14". Nibali did get up to land the e/w for us at 33/1 though which was nice. Nibali easily landed his two matchbets, it was just a pity that I bundled Majka to beat Bardet in to the mix as that cost us a lot of points out of our profit. So a tiny profit of 0.6pts it was then, on to the next one, but that's two close ones with Rojas at 40/1 and Nibali at 33/1, hopefully we can land a big one soon. 

It saw a massive shakeup in the GC, with Nibali leaping up to 2nd, Chaves falling to 3rd and Roche sliding down to 11th after losing over 4 minutes. It is incredibly tight between Chaves in 3rd, De La Cruz in 4th, Kelderman in 5th and Zakarin in 6th, only 5" separates the four of them. DLC did superb to limit his losses to just a minute to Froome, leaving the likes of Woods, Aru, Chaves and TVG behind him on the final climb. He could well have featured had he not punctured, I think we were unlucky there. He is still most definitely in with a shout of a top 3 finish though, his TT will be better than all those around him. Richard Carapaz rode really well today too, he came home in 13th, ahead of a lot of the GC favourites. 

The Route

They head west away from Motril and the road is practically flat bar a few little bumps inside the first 35kms as they run along the coast and through the feedzone after 80kms. They turn inland and just after El Palo they start climbing as they head into the Parque Natural Móntes de Malaga. The climb to the top of the Puerto del León is a Cat 1 climb that goes on for over 17kms in total, at an average of 4.9%, but it rises at various gradients, with a couple of descents along the way too. The first 7kms are pretty steady around 6.3%, then a 1km descent, then the next 6.8kms average 7.6% before easing off again at the top. 

30kms of a descent takes them to the bottom of the next climb to Puerto del Torcal, which is 8.6kms at 6.2%, and which bizarrely has a sprint 3kms in to it. There are some parts that reach up to 10-11%, but it's a pretty steady gradient for most of it. From the top there are only 17.5kms to go, of which 13.5kms are descending. The road flattens out for the last 4kms as they head towards the finish in Antequera and actually starts to rise again with 800m to go, with 700m at 3%, before a flat last 100m for the finish. 

Contenders and Favourites

This looks like another perfect day for the breakaway, which is now becoming the norm in this year's Vuelta, with 6 of the last 8 stages being won by the breakaway. The break today wasn't a great one and the peloton wanted the stage, so they were doomed a long way out, but I think tomorrow might be different. My first thought when I started looking at this profile on Tuesday was 'Julian Alaphilippe' and that's for a number of reasons. First, he's riding really well, as evidenced by his stage win on Sunday, and he was right up there with DLC for a long time today on the final climb. Secondly, he took it relatively easy for the last two days, as obviously QS had a plan with Trentin and Terpstra for stage 10, and stage 11 was beyond his range of abilities. 

Thirdly, we may actually see 2 or 3 QS guys go in the break altogether, I wouldn't be surprised to see Matteo Trentin in the break again, that Cat 1 is tough, but if he can climb like he did on Tuesday he should be able to stay with the climbers who will not be going full gas just yet. Then he would be free to take another easy 3pts at the intermediate sprint at the bottom of the final climb. Who knows, as it's a Cat 2 final climb of only 4.9% average that is left, Trentin may even hang in there and sprint to another stage victory..! 

If not though, I fancy Alaphilippe also for the reasons above.. The Cat 1 will not be taken at full gas, but a strong, steady pace, which I think he can handle, and he should be fine on the Cat 2 climb, possibly even making attacks on some of the steeper parts, or the last 600m which averages 8%. If not, and it's a small group of climber types that comes to the finish with him, he should win the sprint. But lo and behold he has opened at just 6/1 favourite... And Trentin is just 14/1, so I guess they have read it the same way as me too. 

A lot of the usual suspects for a break like this one put a lot of effort in today for not a lot of reward, such as Bardet, Atapuma and Simon Yates, I'm not sure they'll go again. But two guys who have been very short in recent days but have let their backers down badly are Rafal Majka and Rui Costa.. Rui has been under 20/1 for loads of stages and we haven't even seen sight of him in the peloton, let alone the break. He has been almost completely anonymous, but was sitting in 28th up until today, but then he lost a lot of time today and has slipped down to 38th. Again, like with Fraile yesterday, I am not going to back Rui until we see him at least try to get in a break. 

Similarly, Rafal Majka disappeared again today, despite being the hot favourite for the stage. Is this really a stage for him? I don't think so. I think he's saving himself now for a stage win over the next 10 days. Luis Leon at 10/1? No thanks.. even if he gets away he is incapable of finishing off opportunities as we have seen. Pelle Bilbao rode very well today, coming home in 14th place while dragging Aru up the hills. He looked very strong and I hope Astana let him have a go at some point. But I don't think it will be tomorrow. 

This could be a stage for Thomas de Gendt though, he has been quiet in the last few days, but should be ready to go again now in a stage that will suit his characteristics a lot more. He is still in 4th place after all in the KOM competition, so a Cat 1 and a Cat 2 will get him back in the game. And maybe Davide Villela and Alexander Geniez could go again too for the same reason, but they won't be winning. Serge Pauwels could also be one to get up the road, he has been struggling on really tough climbs, but this is far easier and will do ok on this stage.

Tomas Marczynski could also go in the break and as we saw when he won stage 6, he has a decent sprint on him in a reduced group - he's 150/1. Damiano Caruso at 80/1 might like this stage too, or Patrick Konrad for Bora, he's got a decent chance in a reduced group. 

And then you have the GC men again - will they reel them in this time? It took a long time for the break to go again today, and as a result this time they were unable to build up too much of a lead. This has a slightly lumpy start, but then almost 50kms of dead flat roads, it all depends on whether the peloton decide to roll along and take a day off here, or chase hell for leather and keep the gap small. It's a relatively short stage at just 160kms, but I think the break will need 6 mins or so hitting the first climb with 80kms to go.. anything less, and if the GC men fancy the stage, then they could be caught. 

Vincenzo Nibali would then be a fancy again to give it a go on the descent or in a reduced sprint, Chris Froome is riding so well he could ride away from them all again, and lots of riders like Aru, Zakarin, Chaves and Roche have making up to do after today. I think thought that even if the GC men catch the break, I don't think there will be quite the carnage that there was today, and we may actually see a slightly larger group come to the finish. And if that's the case, we may even see Lobato and Rojas involved, or the man of the moment, Matteo Trentin with a second possible way of winning this stage. 

It's a tricky one, as I really fancy Alaphilippe for tomorrow, but I also think Trentin has a good chance too. So I'm going to actually back both of them, even though it seems counter-productive to back two guys from the same team. I am also going to have a few small bets on other break hopefuls and I'm going to throw Gio Visconti in to the mix too as he could also be one for the breakaway, or even to attack late from the GC group or win a sprint finish. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on Matteo Trentin at 14/1 with Bet365

1pt win on Julian Alaphilippe at 6/1 with PP

0.4pts each-way on Gio Visconti at 36/1 with Will Hill

0.25pts each-way on Tomasz Marczynski at 150/1 with Skybet 

0.5pts each-way on Thomas de Gendt at 40/1 with various

Matchbets

Damiano Caruso to beat Rohan Dennis - 2pts at 6/5 with Will Hill

DLC to beat Woods - 2pts at 5/6 with Will Hill