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Published on Monday, 20 August 2018 14:13

Vuelta Stage 1

Málaga to Málaga

Sat Aug 25th, 8kms

The Vuelta a Espana starts with an individual time trial this year, breaking with the recent tradition of team time trials opening the race. It's a short, flat and fast TT that should see the power men battle for the stage and the first red jersey of the race. 

This time last year it was the familiar TTT that opened the race around the streets of the French city Nimes, with BMC proving the strongest yet again, winning by 6"  from QS and Sunweb. Froome's Sky were in 4th, 9" down, but the losers on the day were Fabio Aru, who's Astana team lost 41", and Romain Bardet who lost 46" with his AG2R squad. 

This time it's the first TT to open the race in 9 years (it's too long to be considered a prologue!), but whoever takes the leaders' jersey today for the win might not be hanging on to it for too long as stage 2 ends with the uphill pull to Caminito del Rey and we will probably see one of the lighter guys who finished close enough on the TT take the jersey off of Dennis, or whoever wins the prologue.. Or maybe Dennis's new found climbing ability will see him hold on to it for three days, or maybe more.. 

The Route

It's a looping route around the streets and sea-front of Malaga, with the start and finish a bidon-throw apart. They leave the ramp and head down to the pier on the sea-front, turning back on themselves after 2kms. They then head along the seafront, beside the beaches, before taking a left with 4kms to go and start to climb gently at first. With 3kms to go they start on the only bump on the profile, the Mount Gibralfaro, 1km at 5.5%.

Then it's back downhill towards the finish, with a sharp left hander with 1500m to go, then a sharp right with just over 1km to go. Then it's flat and straight back towards the finish line, with one last turn right with 200m to go. 

Favourites and Contenders

This is not a very demanding or difficult route, and it's only 8kms, so we shouldn't see big time gaps at all between the whole peloton. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there were less than 20 seconds covering the top 10 at the end of the day. The only complication on the course is the 1km climb at 5.5%, but that is nothing really to guys of this calibre. 

And it shouldn't bother the stage favourite Rohan Dennis at all, in fact, it probably works to his advantage as he is so powerful, he'll just charge up it while others might struggle a little to ride the TT bike as fast up there. Dennis was the driving force behind the TTT victory here last year, he was ripping the legs off the rest of them apparently. He was then odds-on favourite to take the ITT on stage 16 last year but pulled out on the rest day with sickness. 

Australian TT champion again this year, winner of the ITTs in Abu Dhabi (over 12.6kms) and Tirreno-Adriatico (over 10kms), he finished 2nd to Dumoulin in the first Giro TT (over 9.7kms) in Jerusalem, but smashed the second one over 34kms. He is the best TT'er here by a mile, he's rested and prepped for this and he'll take all the beating. But 4/11? One for the guys with deep pockets, but it will take a crash or a puncture to beat him I think. 

His biggest rival could be the European Champion Victor Campanaerts, who is right up there with the top TTers in the world. He has been in superb form this year too, winning the Euros just a few weeks back, beating Jonathan Castroviejo by the slimmest of margins. He won the Belgian TT championships again this year in June, after abandoning the Giro on stage 17, he was very unhappy with his 11th place in the previous day's TT. 

He had finished on the same time as Dennis though in the opening TT, just 2" behind Dumoulin, so you can see how close to Dennis he is in terms of ability this year. But in their overall head-to-heads, Dennis has a 7-0, 100% record against Campa.

Richie Porte is up against his team-mate here and is sure to put in a pretty good time, he'll be keen to make an early mark on the race and against his rivals, to show them he's feeling fine. He finished 3rd in the uphill 9.9km TT won by Bernal in the Tour de Romandie, but his record in TTs lately, and in prologues in particular leaves a lot to be desired. He has never won a prologue, the closest he has come was 2nd in the Dauphiné two years ago, but that was up the Montee du Mont Chery Les Gets. I can't see him coming close to a podium on this course, he could ship 20" to his team-mate.

Michal Kwiatkowski could also be challenging for a podium spot, the Pole is clearly in great form, coming off the back of a highly successful home Tour de Pologne, where he took two stage wins, a 3rd and a 6th, the points competition and the overall GC win. He rode his legs off for Froome and Thomas at the Tour and still popped up with 4th place in the final TT. 

He was 3rd in the Polish TT champs behind Bodnar and Bialablocki, but won the road race a few days later, but he also won the 6.6km prologue in the Criterium du Dauphiné earlier in the year, with Campanaerts 5" back in 4th, so he's very capable of pulling off a big performance here. 

Sky have another potential hopeful in David De La Cruz, who won a 14km TT in the Ruta del Sol on a similar sort of course earlier this year, although he didn't exactly beat the cream of the TT'ing world in the process. He did win though, and he beat an under-primed Froome by 27", so it was a pretty decent ride. He also finished 8th in the 18km TT in Paris-Nice and 7th in Itzulia this year, but was only 51st in the 10km ITT in the Giro in Jerusalem, 50" behind Dennis. 

Wilko Kelderman was Dutch TT champion in 2015, beating Van Emden and Dumoulin, and was 3rd in 2016 and 2018. He had bad luck in Tirreno-Adriatico this year, when sitting just 11" off the lead, he crashed twice in the space of 500m (2nd time because he was chasing too hard to try to get back on..) and fractured his collarbone. That saw him not race for 3 months, only coming back in June at the Tour de Suisse, but he still managed an impressive 5th place. He was actually 2nd after stage 4, but eventually slipped from 3rd to 5th because of a disappointing TT over 34kms on the final day.

He then crashed again though in the Dutch Nationals and had another operation on his shoulder, so with the injury layoff he's only raced for 22 days this year, so he should be very fresh.. If he's fit enough and ready for action in this Vuelta he could go really well. I think he'll go well, he might not podium, but he will not lose too much time, and the bigger goals are in the days to come in the mountains anyway. 

Lars Boom, Nelson Oliveira, Thomas de Gendt, Matthias Brandle, Emanuel Buchmann, Ilnur Zakarin - all are outsiders who could do good times here, but they will be fighting for minor honours, while the likes of Vincenzo Nibali, Dan Martin and Miguel Angel Lopez will just be fighting to lose as little time as possible in just the first stage. 

It looks like Dennis's stage to lose, he should be too good for everyone here, but Michal Kwiatkowski and Victor Campanaerts will give him a good run for his money. But with win only betting, and a 4/11 favourite, I'm actually going to do something I don't think I've done in a very long time.. and that's recommend a no bet. I'll try to find something in the matchbets when they come out that might get us off to a positive start though, watch for updates on that.  

Update: 24/8, 12:15 - Dennis is creeping up towards 1/2 on Betfair now, if he goes above 1/2 I'll be having 5pts on him I think, he's the most likely winner and should comfortably take it. One thing that I've spotted thought which might make an ok bet, is that in the two short prologues that Campanaerts has done so far this year, he's finished 4th and 5th.. Backing to finish outside the top 3 might have a chance of landing at 13/8.. I've added some matchbets now too below, Kwiat to beat Campa at 11/10 looks good, it's 17/20 each of two with Hill's, I have it very close indeed and Kwiat might just shade it. Campanaerts will be too good for Castroviejo if you fancy taking on the 2/5, I'm waiting to see if 365 or Hills will allow multiples and will add some more tonight/tomorrow if so. 

Recommendations:

No Bet... (Or take 1/2 or better on Dennis if he gets there)

Matchbets

Kwiatkowski to beat Campanaerts - 2pts at 11/10

3pts on Campanaerts to beat Castroviejo at 2/5

STAGE 2 PREVIEW >>