Details

Published on Tuesday, 07 May 2019 21:13

Giro 2019 Contenders

Tom and Rog battle for pink

This time last year I was talking about Tom Dumoulin going to have a hard time of it defending his title, what with Chris Froome taking to the start line. There's no Froome this year, but Dumoulin has new foes taking him on for the Maglia Rosa. 

What's it going to take to win the race this year then? Well, as always with the Giro, you'll need to be able to climb.. short hills, long mountains, steep ones, not so steep ones.. but this year they mostly come in the second part of the race, so riders have a bit of time to ride in to form if they're not quite 100% starting the race. 

But just as important this year will be the three time trials. An opening TT, a closing TT and a big TT right in the middle will make a huge difference to the outcome of this race, with the stronger TT riders knowing they will take a lot of time at the start, and especially at the end of this race when it matters most. 

Where else will the race be won and lost? Well, it's the Giro, so it could be absolutely anywhere. A crash, a split, a mechanical can cost you time even on the flattest of stages. Although the big climbs loom later on in the race, some of the earlier uphill finishes could see the likes of Yates and Lopez take seconds off Dumoulin and some of the others, and this race could be won by seconds at the end of the day. Stage 4 for example is one Yates probably has his eye on.. 

But of course, it's the mountains where the big differences can be made if you're on a good or a bad day. Stage 6 might give us the first glimpse of who might not be 100% with the 10km Cat 2 climb that tops out 18kms from the finish. Stage 12 sees them shoot skywards out of a pretty flat profile for the Montoso, the first Cat 1 climb of the race, but with 32kms still to go to the finish, dropped GC men should have enough road to rejoin the leading group.

Stage 13 is where things get really serious though with the final climb being 45kms from the valley to the summit which is 2,247m high - at that altitude it could be a Colombian fiesta. Stage 14 could be a real firecracker of a stage, just 131kms long but packed with climbing. The Colle San Carlo is a serious test and we could see a furious pace on it in an attempt to weed out the weaker hands. If you crack there you could lose a lot of time by the finish with an 8km climb still to come before the finish. 

Stage 16 sees the riders come back after the rest day to face a brutal 228km stage that takes them over the Gavia and the Mortirolo before a tough run for 16kms up to Ponte di Legno. The climbing is really hard, but the descent off the Mortirolo is dangerous - the descent could also make a difference to the outcome of this race. This is the sort of stage that will really test Dumoulin and Roglic's credentials as potential winners of this race.

There's another uphill finish on stage 17, but it's not so difficult and we might not see much of a time gap between the favourites. Stage 19 is another summit finish, on a Cat 2 climb that drags on for 31kms from the very bottom, but getting steeper for the last 13kms or so. But with the next day's stage on everyone's mind we might see a bit of a stalemate amongst the favourites and it should be won by the breakaway. 

And on to the final act in the mountains - a 194km slog around the Dolomites - Cat 2, Cat 1, Cat 2, Cat 2, Cat 1.. Although this stage finishes with a Cat 2 and a Cat 1, they are not the hardest climbs of the stage and we could see this race explode from the very first kilometres and over every single climb. It could be all-out war on this stage as there could be so much up for grabs still - the win, the top 3, top 10 places, KOM and of course the stage win too.

If it's tight at the top and Dumoulin's rivals want to gain time on him ahead of the final TT they will need to go hard from the start and try to do a Froome on him and see if they can crack him. Same might be said of Roglic who has done great in one-week races this year, but how will he fare on a day like this after three weeks of hard racing? We could be in for a real treat again this day.

And then the final TT - at 17kms it's long enough for 20', 30', 40' time gaps between some of these guys. As we saw with Dumoulin versus Nairo Quintana in the TT two years ago, Dumoulin went from being 53" down on Quintana to 31" ahead on the final TT. Thibaut Pinot slipped off the podium during the final TT and Ilnur Zakarin lost 41" over the 29.3km TT. 

So all to play for - team strength will play a major part in the second half of the race, and as I'll mention during the individual's analysis below, some have good teams, some not so much.. So without further ado, let's get to it. 

Contenders for Pink

Primoz Roglic - Jumbo Visma (15/8 favourite with Betfair/Paddy Power)

9/2 third favourite behind Dumoulin and Yates back in February, Roglic's price has been sliding with every passing race he wins and he now is in to 15/8 favourite to take the Giro, as short as 6/4 with most bookies. His price slide has caught me by surprise a little, I didn't expect him to go off as favourite for the Giro, I had even written about Dumoulin as being the head of the betting only a week ago.

It has been a truly astonishing rise to fame for Roglic, a guy a lot of cycling fans hadn't even heard of two years ago. If someone had said to you even this time last year he'd be favourite for the 2019 Giro you'd have though they were being a bit optimistic to say the least. 

But he just keeps getting better and better - since the start of last season he has won Itzulia, the Tour of Romandie, Tour of Slovenia, 4th in the TDF, 3rd in the TOB, won UAE Tour, Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of Romandie again. In fact in one-week races since Itzulia last year his record reads 1st, 1st, 3rd, 1st, 1st, 1st - total domination in one-week races. 

He has been brilliant again this year, winning three stages in Romandie just last week, and coming within 0.3 seconds of making it four wins, denied by Jan Polanc in the opening TT. In Tirreno he was a little bit luckier, beating Adam Yates by less than a second in the final GC, winning it on the final 10km TT. Consistency has been his key though - he is just so consistent - always up there at the front, always willing to attack when he sees an opportunity, always able to stay close enough to rivals to limit time losses he can make up on the TTs.

And he is a superb time triallist, especially ones with hills in them. And guess what, all three of the TTs here have hills in them. He has been priced up at 2/7 to win the opening TT, an unbelievably short price, but it's hard to see anyone stopping him as he'll fly along the flat and charge up the hill faster than most. That will give him a small early buffer over his rivals, and he'll also take time in the final TT and the TT in the middle. 

What about the mountains? Well he has shown he's pretty comfortable there too, defending against the likes of Thomas, Woods and Gaudu in Romandie and even outsprinting them at the end of stage 4's final climb. In Tirreno, Yates did drop him on that tough stage 5, but he only lost 16" to him, whereas Tom Dumoulin finished a further 43" back.

What about over three weeks though? In the Tour last year he was doing ok until they hit the first serious mountain stage on stage 11 to La Rosiere, when he lost 59" to Thomas and 39" to Dumoulin and Froome. And again the next day he lost 11" to Dumoulin on Alpe d'Huez, coming home with Nibali, but he was a long way ahead of the likes of Nairo Quintana, Valverde, Dan Martin and Zakarin. But on the tough uphill finish to Mende on stage 14, he might have finished 18 minutes behind the winner, but he was the first of the GC men home, finishing 8" ahead of Froome, Thomas and Dumoulin.  

Stage17 saw him finish 52" behind Quintana, but beside Dumoulin and more importantly ahead of Froome in his battle for the 3rd spot on the GC and Bernal, Majka, Bardet and Valverde. Stage 19 to Laruns though was his stage, he attacked from the GC group with 31.6kms to go, bridged up to Kruijswijk with Dumoulin and Thomas, after dropping Froome, and then attacked again with 21.4kms to go, shooting past Landa and Bardet from the break.

He pushed hard on the descent, caught Majka who had got a small gap at the summit and with just under 8kms to go his agressive descending saw him get a gap that he just continued to stretch for the next 5kms or so, hitting over 70kmph regularly on the descent. Even with Tom Dumoulin "on the limit" as Thomas attested to afterwards, he could not catch Roglic and his win saw him jump up to 3rd on the GC. He lost that to Froome the next day though in the TT, paying for his efforts and losing a whopping 1'12" to Dumoulin over 30kms. 

His team are very strong too, and although he'll miss the support of Robert Gesink, he has good support in the shape of Laurens de Plus, Antwan Tolhoek, Sepp Kuss, Koen Bouwman and Jos Van Emden for the flatter stages. 

He seems to have all the attributes though to win a race like the Giro - his time trialling seems to have come up a notch this year, he can climb, he can descend better than most, he can win reduced GC sprints, he can go well on punchy, uphill finishes. He is going to be very hard to beat, he showed in the Tour that he can still go well at the end of a three-week Tour, but he'll have to be a bit more careful he doesn't burn himself out ahead of the final TT like in the Tour. Very few chinks in his armour, but with a race back-loaded with such a tough second half, will he be as fresh as he needs to be for the final two stages? We'll have to wait three weeks to find out.  

Tom Dumoulin – Sunweb (5/2 generally) 

Tom Dumoulin came in to this race last year after a troubled build-up, his season  beset by mishaps and misfortune, and he cut a frustrated figure at times. After apparently over-training in the winter, he has raced less than 2,000kms in just 12 race days, a pitifullly small amount of racing. 

But his build up last year and the year before are almost identical to this year with UAE, Tirreno, MSR and LBL. The only difference was that he only got as far as stage 4 of Tirreno last year, and this year he missed Strade Bianche. After MSR he went to his usual training camp in Tenerife for a month to prepare for this, and as Lance Armstrong said in his podcast "that's an awful long time to be training in the mountains, but it'll mean he's going to be ready for this". 

He was 6/4 favourite for this race at the start of the year, he's flip-flopped with Roglic though since and is now out to 5/2 in most books. It's been a pretty mediocre build-up for Tom though again this year, but even being 'mediocre' he has finished 4th in Tirreno and 6th in the UAE Tour and has been trying to say that he is not in the same shape he was coming in to this race last year. 

But he has plenty of time to work himself in to shape with no major hills to overcome really until stages 12 and 13. The opening TT will be very suitable for him and there won't be much between him and Roglic, not as much as 2/7 and 72 would suggest. He will do better than Roglic I think on the middle TT and will be very close to him on the final TT. So there won't be much in it at all when it comes to the races against the clock. 

So where can he win it? Well, he will just have to hope that he can stay with, or close to the likes of the Colombians and Simon Yates when the big attacks come on the very big stages, and hopes that Roglic has an off day like he had on stage 11 of the Tour last year. He will have to attack him himself at some point I think in the mountains to test him too, he's not an explosive rider at all, but he can grind at a very high pace and maybe burn him off. 

As for the rest of the competition, well he has Yates and MAL covered for probably 2 minutes or so across the three time trials, so he has some slipping room there to lose 20", 40", a minute here and there and can still be ahead of them. He should be well clear of the likes of Nibali, Landa, Sosa and Carapaz in the TTs too, and wouldn't have much to fear from them in the mountains either. 

So he's got most bases covered with Roglic, he just needs to make sure he turns up with his TT'ing A-Game.. I would have liked to have seen him do better than 8th in the TT in Tirreno, but he was only 8" behind Campanaerts and was 5" ahead of Roglic on a pan-flat, 10km course. Add a hill in to him and advantage turns his way a bit more like we saw in the Worlds. 

It's a similar sort of team to Roglic, a strong team of good quality riders, but no super domestiques or anything like that, although Sam Oomen isn't far off that sort of title and is riding very well this year too. Small setback for him having to abandon Itzulia in April with sickness, but they have shifted his focus to the Giro now to support Tom, especially after Wilko Kelderman was injured and ruled out. 

Dumoulin expressed his desire to have Oomen's focus changed from the Tour de France to the Giro.  "The only rider who comes up near Kelderman in terms of level is Sam Oomen," Dumoulin told AD.nl. "But Sam is scheduled for the Tour and I don't know if the team will convert that. I also think that Sam is ready for the Tour. But the main goal of the team is the Giro and then it is a consideration." Looks like he's got his wish to have him here with him, it's all for the Giro now for them. 

Robert Power, Chad Haga, Chris Hamilton, Louis Vervaeke and Jai Hindley will have a big job on their hands trying to look after Tom for three weeks, but they are strong, experienced riders who will give their all for him. After what happened to Dumoulin on the the Finestre/Froome stage last year, I wouldn't be surprised to see him try something similar on stage 20, attacking early and trying to blow the race apart, maybe with riders up the road in the break that can help him out later on. 

Either way, he's similar to Roglic in so many ways, it's almost impossible to split them. But can Dumoulin's experience see him to victory?

Simon Yates – Mitchelton Scott (3/1 with various)

We could be talking about Simon Yates as the reigning champion of this race, but what a disastrous end to a stunning race up until then when it all fell apart for him on the crazy stage 19 won by Chris Froome. It looked like he would win in a canter last year with only a few stages left, so much so that he had traded in to something like 1/4, with Froome as big as 50/1. 

He had been sensational up until then, taking the race by the scruff of the neck and just shaking it up from the very start. 7th on the opening TT, just 20" behind Dumoulin over 9.7kms, he moved up to 3rd after the uphill finish to stage 4 (that many expected him to win actually) but moved in to Pink after that incredible dual attack with Esteban Chaves on Mount Etna on stage 6, gifting the stage to the Colombian, much to the chagrin of those who had backed him for the stage!

He won his first stage though on stage 12, taking 12" out of Dumoulin at the top of the Grand Sasso, then made it two wins two days later outsprinting Dumoulin on the punchy finish up to Osimo. 2nd on Monte Zoncoloan, 6" behind Froome, but 19" ahead of Lopez and 31" ahead of Dumoulin, and completed the hat-trick of wins on stage 15 with a superb victory, winning by 41" second from his key rivals. With just one week left he had 2'11" on Dumoulin and 4'52" on Froome. All over, surely. 

The day after the rest-day though saw his rivals fight back - he lost 1'15" to Dumoulin and 1'02" to Froome over the rolling 34km TT and suddenly Dumoulin was within 56". And then it all fell apart in dramatic fashion for the young Brit, and the writing was on the wall very early on as he was struggling on the first climb of the day, the Colle Del Lys, which they will climb up the opposite, steeper side this year on stage 13. When Froome put the hammer down on the Finestre, he blew up and came home a staggering 38'51" down and slide from 1st to 18th in the GC, eventually falling to 21st following the final TT. 

In fairness to Yates, he learned from that debacle and bounced back in spectacular fashion to take the Vuelta a Espana later in the year, pacing himself in a much better fashion through the three weeks. This showed to maximum effect in that he finished 2nd and 3rd in the last two mountain stages in the Pyrenees, and even fared much better comparatively in the 32km TT on stage 16, only finishing 11" slower than Campanaerts and ahead of the likes of Ion Izagirre and Cummings. It all meant he eventually beat Enric Mas by 1'46" and MAL by 2'04" to take his first Grand Tour. 

What about this year and his chances here? Well, his record looks nothing like Primoz Roglic's, or even Tom Dumoulin's, he has finished 41st in Andalucia, 25th in Paris Nice and 13th in Catalunya as he built up slowly towards the Giro. He did win a good stage in Andalucia though, and bizarrely won the 25km TT in Paris-Nice, beating Kwiatkowski, Van Garderen, Bob Jungels and Ion Izagirre by considerable margins. It was a complete bolt from the blue, and something that made people sit up and really take notice for his chances in the Giro, if he has managed to improve his TT'ing by that much since last year. 

In Catalunya he was working for Adam, and it almost paid off, but he was beaten by MAL by just 14". Adam isn't here to repay the favour to him though, but he has a decent enough team with him here, with Mikel Nieve, Esteban Chaves, Brent Bookwalter and Lucas Hamilton to look after him in the mountains, Chris-Juul Jensen, Luke Durbridge and Jack Bauer to look after him lower down the slopes and on flat stages. I'm worried about his results this year though and I think that TT result must have been a one-off, freak result, I can't see him repeating that sort of performance here.  

Vincenzo Nibali – UAE Emirates (7/1 with various)

It was fun watching Vincenzo Nibali liven things up in the Tour of the Alps just a few weeks back, with relentless attacking trying to put the Sky young guns Sivakov and TGH under pressure. He attacked, they reeled him in, he attacked again, and again and again. But at the end of the day, they took three stages between them and 1st and 2nd on the GC, with Nibali having to settle for 3rd. 

3rd isn't a bad result at all in the lead-up to the Giro, it showed he has good legs and is still willing to attack and attack and not wait for someone else. But it is a bit worrying though that he couldn't see off the likes of Tao, who's not really known for his climbing abilities, and Sivakov, who is a tremendous prospect, is only 21 and pretty inexperienced. 

His build up to this race has been similar to Tom Dumoulin's in terms of venues and results, with UAE Tour and Tirreno, but he showed better legs than Dumoulin in LBL and MSR, finishing 8th in both. A twice former winner of this race (and the Tour and the Vuelta too), it has been 3 years though since his last GT victory and over a year since his last race victory in MSR. 

Taken out of the Tour de France last year when going well by a supporter, he failed to fire in the Vuelta and finished way down in 59th. He skipped the Giro last year to focus on the Tour, but this year he's back to see if he can do something here, maybe knowing that the Tour is probably beyond him now. He has an ok team with him here, Domenico Pozzovivo finished 5th in the Giro last year, having been as high as 3rd before Froome's antics on stage 19 killed him off too. More on him below.. He also has Grega Bole, his brother Antonio, Valerio Agnoli and Damiano Caruso who will work hard for him.

He will be exciting to watch, he will attack and get us a bit excited on some days, but I really can't see how he will finish on the podium. He will lose minutes in the TTs to the good guys, and time to some of the not-so-good guys, and he might struggle to go with the really strong climbers in the second week. He might come good in the third week, as he often does, but will it be too late? 

Miguel Angel Lopez – 6/1

This time last year I was waxing lyrical about how great Lopez is and how I fancied him for the podium, and he delivered for us on the each-way bets by taking 3rd. It was a great ride by the little Colombian, working his way up the GC bit by bit, getting stronger as the third week came to a conclusion. He also won the young riders competition, in a great battle with Richard Carapaz, beating him by just 47", with Sam Oomen over 9 minutes back. 

He followed that up with another 3rd for us in the Vuelta, just 18" off of 2nd place, but 2'04" behind Simon Yates. This year, he's won the Colombia Tour and Catalunya, but struggled in the cross-winds in the first two stages in Paris-Nice and his race was over by the end of stage two, losing over 9 minutes. 

He took control of Catalunya with a powerful win on La Molina on stage 4 and held it to Barcelona comfortably. He is part of the all-conquering Astana team who have been on fire this year in so many races, and will have the support of Pelle Bilbao, who himself finished 6th in this race last year, and was no lower than 9th for the duration of the three weeks. Bilbao has finished 3rd in Valenciana and 4th in Andalucia this year, and he'll be a massive help in the mountains to MAL. 

He also has Jan Hirt, Davide Vilella, Andrey Zeits, Manuele Boaro and Dario Cataldo, probably the strongest all-round squad in the race, and no wonder they are the even money favourite to take the team classification. And I haven't even come on to Ion Izagirre, he gets his own section later on.. But where they can't help him will be his biggest achilles heel again - in the TTs.. 

He's not very good against the clock and he has shown this year that it is not something he's been working a lot on, compared to say Simon Yates who seems to have come on in leaps and bounds this year. It's notable that the two stage races he's won this year didn't have an ITT in them. He lost lots of time and places in the TTs in the Giro and the Vuelta last year, already losing 56" to Dumoulin over 10kms in the opening TT in Jerusalem, and then lost another 2'25" to him in the second 34km TT.

With similar TTs this year, MAL will need all his superman strength to pull back the 3-4 minutes he could ship to TomDum in the TTs. But you know he's capable of finding 30 or 40 seconds here and there with big attacks and stage wins, he should be good for one or two stage wins, which will also net him bonus seconds. He'll be drolling over the profile of stages 13, 14, 16, 19 and 20 where he could be plotting some long-range attacks in an attempt to crack his rivals and steal back time.

He has a great team to help him with that, he has shown his stamina to not only last through the three weeks of the Giro, but to also get stronger as the race goes on. I think we'll see him put in an all-star showing again this year, and the 11/1 available on him is almost double the 6/1 we backed him at last year and must be worth a bet. But it might be worth going half stakes pre-race and the rest after the opening TT, as you might get a bigger price on him after that. 

Mikel Landa – Movistar (20/1 with various)

Almost the forgotten man of the Giro, you won't hear his name being mentioned much in previews and recommendations and he could be one to throw the cat amongst the pigeons this year and spark a bit of chaos. He's been very unlucky in the last 6 months or so, first crashing in San Sebastian and fracturing a vertebrae and rib, leading him to DNFing in every one of the last six races he did in 2018. 

He then came in to this season with hopes of putting that behind him, but crashed again in the Trofeo Ses Salines in January, breaking his collarbone in the process and he didn't race again until March 23rd when he finished down the field in MSR.

After that though he went to the Settimana Coppi e Bartali and won a stage, but he wasn't up against much to be fair (right). He did finish 4th overall though, having lost time in the TTT on stage 1b. He then went on to finish 7th in Itzulia, riding well later in the race after a disappointing opening TT which saw him lose 54" over just 11kms. He also rode very well in LBL, coming home in 7th with the first small group that chased Fuglsang and Formolo home. 

After that he had finished 2nd on stage 2 of the Vuelta Asturias beside his team-mate Carapaz but had to withdraw on stage 3 because of a toe-nail problem. Carapaz though said that they were very happy with where they were heading in to the Giro "Regarding the Giro – well, we’re in the position we wanted, with good confidence, good legs, willing to do our best, work hard for the team, make my countrymen happy, make our fans proud". 

He will lose time in the TTs, that's without question, but Landa is the master of ambush attacks and long-range efforts that can yield excellent results. He looks in good form, has bags of experience and a good team here with him, so he is right to be considered amongst the favourites, albeit a slight outsider. There is a possibility that he could find himself several minutes down after the second TT though and he might switch to stage hunting or the KOM jersey competition, I'll be having a nibble on him for that too. 

Outsiders

Ivan Sosa, Pavel Sivakov and Tao Geoghan Hart - Team Ineos (66/1, 100/1 and 100/1 with various)

Team Ineos come here with the youngest squad ever for a Grand Tour and with no dedicated leader following the withdrawal of Egan Bernal after his unfortunate accident last weekend. Instead they will be looking to their three young guns who have been given an extraordinary opportunity to make a name for themselves. Tao Geoghan Hart and Pavel Sivakov were superb at the Tour of the Alps, winning three stages and taking 1st and 2nd in the GC ahead of Nibali. They repelled every attack from Nibali, TGH in particular being incredible in the sevices of Siv. 

But it's their younger (by 3 months from Sivakov) Colombian team-mate who is the shortest in the betting of the three, at 66/1. Sosa has had a quiet start to 2019 in Europe, after a good 2nd place in the Colombia Tour in February, but he had earned a contract with Sky following his superb 2018 while riding with Androni, the highlight of which was a win in the Vuelta a Burgos when he beat Miguel Angel Lopez and David De La Cruz. He sealed it with a superb win on the final stage that finished on the summit of Lagunas de Neila, which has a very similar profile to stage 13 to Lago Serru. 

He also won the Sibiu Tour and Adriatica Ionica, his win there came as a result of his win on stage 3 to the Passo Giau, which also went over the passo Rolle which they cross on stage 20. That stage, like stage 13 here also finished at over 2,200m, I think I'll be backing him on stage 13.. He's going to be exciting to watch, he might light up a few stages, but he doesn't really have a time trial to speak about and at 21 and with no experience of a three-week Tour it would be even more fantastical than Froome's comeback last year if he was to win this. 

Sivakov and TGH are similar, and although he did ride a Grand Tour, in the Vuelta last year, he only got as far as stage 13 and abandoned when in 135th place. At least he can time trial a little bit more than Sosa, he was 2nd in the Russian TT champs last year. Again, he's here for experience, maybe to light up a stage or two, but a top 20 would be as good as he can hope for I think, if he finishes at all. 

As for TGH, well he has looked incredibly strong of late and could be an exciting one to watch too. He's actually finished a GT though, 62nd in last year's Vuelta, and he has some other decent GC results in stage races like 5th in the Tour of California last year (while working his ass off for Egan Bernal who won it), 13th in the Dauphiné and 5th in Burgos. Of the three, I think he'll finish the highest but he won't trouble the top 10. 

Richard Carapaz - Movistar (80/1 with Betway)

Carapaz had a great battle with MAL for the young riders jersey last year, Carapaz actually led Lopez by 1'21" going in to stage 14 but the Zoncolan made all the difference by the end of the race. His superb performances though throughout the race saw him take a surprise 4th place on the GC, a very impressive result for the 24 year old Ecuadorian. He followed that up with 18th in the Vuelta and has started this season pretty well too, with a win in the Vuelta Asturias a few weeks back, and he's happy, confident and feeling really good ahead of the Giro. 

His weaknesses? Well, his performances in the TTs in the Vuelta and the Giro last year were pretty awful, he lost almost 3 minutes in the 34km TT in the middle of the Giro. And also, if you could call it a weakness, he'll probably be expected to work for Landa as long as Landa has a chance at a top finish. But if that falls apart, expect Carapaz to go stage hunting again and we could see a lot of him in the last week or so in the mountains. 

Ilnur Zakarin - Katusha (70/1 with BF/PP)

Zakarin could be anything in this race, I think he is strong enough to stay with the big boys on most of the tougher mountain stages, but he always seem to have a bad day that ruins his chances of a good placing. He has finished 5th in the Giro and 3rd in the Vuelta in 2017 and 9th in the Tour last year, so that sort of ability has to be respected. He didn't have a great Vuelta though last year, finishing over 51 minutes down in 20th place. 

This year he has finished 10th in Paris-Nice and 8th in Romandie, but he was 2 mins back on Roglic over one week, a minute of that was lost in the 16km TT.. he could lose well over 3 minutes across three TTs then and with it all chance of a top 3. But he is capable of a top 10 in this company I think but 1/3 is a bit skinny. 

Rafal Majka and Davide Formolo - Bora (100/1 and 150/1)

The two Bora boys are showing some great form lately and will play a big part in a lot of this race. Majka is a veteran of 14 Grand Tours, and has finished 5th, 6th and 7th over the years here, as well as finishing 3rd in the 2015 Vuelta. He hasn't finished in the top 10 of a GT though since 2016, his time trialling leaves him down all the time. 6th in the TOTA, 7th in Catalunya, he will go very well on a lot of the mountain stages, he's climbing very well at the moment. 13, 14, 16, 19 and 20 are the sorts of stages he likes and we could see some mid-stage attacks from him looking to catch the GC men by surprise. 

With Majka though, you might also find him losing time early on so that he can try to concentrate on the KOM jersey. He will know he won't be able to top 3 it here, and top 6 will also be a challenge for him, so it might well be that we see him enter the first mountains with a deficit to the GC men, allowing him the freedom to attack. He would come away from the Giro with a lot more credit for winning the KOM than finishing 12th in the GC, so it wouldn't surprise me if that's his plan. 

Davide Formolo has been riding very well of late too, he was very strong in Catalunya, his final stage win in Barcelona was superb, he showed some real power and class to win that day. He showed similar attacking flair and power in finishing 2nd to Fuglsang in LBL, that was a surprise result in some ways, but not when you looked back at his form in Catalunya. He went to altitude training for a while in between Catalunya and LBL and is ready to rock it in the Giro. 

Formolo has finished in the top 10 in the last two editions of the Giro, incredibly finishing 15'16" down in 2018 and 15'17" down in 2017. He will also lose time in the TTs, but maybe not as much as some of his rivals and will find a few of the really tough stages a bit too hard for him. But I think he is well capable of a top 10 again and evens looks ok to me. 

Ion Izagirre and Pelle Bilbao- Astana (250/1 and 300/1 with 365)

Ok, MAL is the main man for Astana, but Pelle Bilbao and Ion Izagirre are pretty decent plan B's should anything happen to MAL in the first week or so. Bilbao was superb last year, working for MAL as much as he could, but finishing mountain stages really strong every day to take him high up on the GC too. Bilbao started the season really well with 3rd in Valenciana (thanks to a good 7th in the opening TT), 3rd in Murcia and 4th in Andalucia, again thanks to a 7th place in the 16km lumpy TT. 

His form has dipped off a little since on paper, but in Catalunya he helped MAL win the GC and in Itzulia he helped Ion Izagirre win the GC. In Itzulia he pulled off another decent TT, finishing 11th. His price is what it is because it's all for MAL in this race, but surely he must be worth a pound or two in case MAL has a misfortune and the baton is passed to him?  

Same can be said of Ion Izagirre who has had a briliant season so far too, winning Valenciana (thanks to a fine 2nd in the opening TT ahead of Tony Martin, Van Emden and Nelson Oliveira), 2nd in Andalucia (thanks to a fine 3rd place in the hilly TT) and he recovered well in Paris-Nice after being another of those to get caught out in the cross-winds in the first stages, winning the last stage in Nice and climbing from 128th on stage 1 to 21st by the finish. Then went and won Itzulia too, again thanks to 7th in the TT. He is on fire this year and I would be kicking myself for letting 250/1 go on him too if anything was to happen to Superman. 

Others to consider - Domenico Pozzovivo should go well, as long as he has recovered from that horror crash in FW, but he'll be working for Nibali as long as Nibali has a chance. Bauke Mollema will be on the fringes, might make the top 10, but will struggle to stay with the goats. Max Schachmann, Esteban Chaves, Michael Woods, Carlos Betancur, Patrick Konrad and Ben O'Connor are some more names who will feature during this race quite a bit, but I can't see them in the top 10. 

So - decision time.. Well it looks like a coin toss between Roglic and Dumoulin, and it could all come down to one moment, or one bad day. Roglic looks in better form, Tom has the experience and the proven stamina for three weeks. There will be very little between them in the TTs, there will be very little between them on the big climbs. But at the prices (now 100/30 on Betfair) I have to back Tom. I think he will just shade it. 

As for others? Well, Simon Yates will not be far off either, but he's way too short for me at 3/1, Nibali will enjoy himself back in Italy I think and could be a dark horse.. He will certainly get plenty of support and plenty friendly motorbikes along the way too probably. MAL should go well again and looks a better value bet for the podium, but like Sosa, his TT'ing will let him down. Landinio though looks a tasty e/w bet to me at 20/1, I think he'll have a big race and will light it up on some of the harder mountain stages. But as he's unlikely to beat both Roglic and Dumoulin, the more prudent bet is probably to have a go at the 3/1 for a top 3 finish. And a few pounds on the outsiders too for a bit of fun. 

Recommendation:

2pts win on Tom Dumoulin at 4.3 on Betfair as a trading bet. 

1pt each-way on M A Lopez at 11/1 with various

1pt on Mikel Landa to finish in the first 3 at 3/1 with 365

0.2pts e/w on Pelle Bilbao at 300/1 with 365

0.2pts e/w on Ion Izagirre at 250/1 with 365

Matchbets

To come