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Published on Saturday, 11 May 2019 17:44

Giro d'Italia St 2

Bologna - Fucecchio

Sunday 12th May, 205kms 

The second stage is quite a tough introduction to the race and it's going to be a hard stage to control. The last 20kms might be flat, but there's a lot of hills to get over before that for any sprinters with designs on winning this stage. 

Elia Viviani won the first road stage last year in Tel Aviv, after a powerful leadout from the DQS team. This is going to be a very different prospect entirely though, with a very lumpy profile that looks perfect for a breakaway. They are climbing from the flag drop, gently at first, but then there's a tough Cat 3 and 4 climb to get over inside the last 50kms and you just know that the other teams will be looking to blow Viviani out the back door to set up a chance for their men who can hang in there. 

Well, what a start we had to the race today, with a brutal TT that has blown huge time gaps all over the race aready and Roglic justified his favouritism, not just for the stage, but the race overall with a stunning time trial. Tom Dumoulin never looked like he was on a great day and that was shown clearly when the second rider of the day home beat his time and shortly after Vincenzo Nibali showed that the legs are in pretty good shape for the start of a Grand Tour by smashing Dumoulin and Roglic's time. 

But when Roglic blew them all away, to take a 23" lead there were audible gasps around the finish line and no doubt all around the world. It wasn't so much a beating, more a demolition job. The others know they have their work cut out for them now though, Roglic is clearly head and shoulders above them all, but he might be a bit more worried now about Vincenzo, he normally rides himself in to form for the 3rd week, if he's starting like this it's an ominous sign. 

Dumoulin, Lopez and Yates know they have a battle on their hands, but at least they are within touching distance, Landa, Zakarin and Izagirre have had terrible starts. It might bode well though for Landa's KOM hopes, if he has another bad day he could find himself totally out the running in the first half of the race and could switch to focusing on the jersey. 

The Route

"The stage is wavy since the start. The route cuts across the Apennines in Castiglione dei Pepoli, descends into Prato and follows the rolling hills of the Circondario Empolese Valdelsa through Montespertoli, climbs up Castra / Montalbano and San Baronto, and then heads for the finish in Fucecchio."

They climb from the start, gently at first for 37kms, then it kicks up a little more, averaging 3.2% for 14kms, but with a little false flat for about 4kms in the middle, so it's actually closer to 4.1% for the climbing. They then descend for about 50kms, before hitting the series of climbs in the last 75kms.

First up is the intermediate sprint at Montespertoli at 130kms, which is actually on top of a small little hill, then with 151.7kms gone they hit the Cat 3 Montalbano climb, which averages 7.7% for 4.5kms of the climb, with slightly easier bits at the bottom and top (right).

With 37.6kms to go they start on the Cat 4 San Baronto climb, which is an easier climb at 3% or so for 11.3kms. From the bottom of the descent there's only 22kms left, with one little bump to get over 13kms from home before a flat run to the finish. There are a series of tight turns and roundabouts inside the last 3kms, but once they take the last left with 950m to go it's then dead-straight and flat all the way to the line 

Contenders and Favourites

So.. sprint finish or break? That's the conundrum.. and then, even if it does come to a sprint finish, will all the sprinters be there? If stage 15 is a version of Il Lombardia, this is a bit like Milan San Remo, and we know that sprinters have been struggling to win that race in recent years.. 

There is definitely a chance a strong break could make it, as the GC men won't be chasing hard given their team leaders will probably be wanting to take it easy any chance they can and after their efforts in the opening TT, a lot of them looked totally knackered at the end of it. And maybe DQS and the sprinters' teams might just decide to keep their powder dry for stage 3, which is much more likely to be a bunch kick.. 

But at the same time, teams with strong sprinters will be very keen to keep a leash on the break and try to set up an opportunity for one of their men to win the stage, and maybe even take the Pink Jersey in the days ahead. And it's not often we get a break win the first stage of a Grand Tour, there are lots of teams who will fancy pulling the break back. That means they will chase, but also push really hard on the hills to shed Viviani and the other faster men. 

Elia Viviani warmed up for this with a good hit-out in Romandie, almost taking the provisional lead when he finished the opening prologue, eventually taking a creditable 23rd. Stefan Kung killed it for the sprinters on the only sprint stage, and when the stage win was gone, Viviani only gave it a half-effort at the finish and rolled in in 5th place. He struggled in MSR though and failed to finish off the job done by his team-mates in Gent-Wevelgem, and given the lumpy nature of this course, I fear for him reaching the line with the peloton if they go REALLY hard on the Montalbano, it is 7.7% average for 4.5kms, which is over twice as steep as the Poggio. I think he's a weak favourite and I'm not touching him at that price. I might chase it though in the last 20kms if it looks like he's going to make the sprint, I'd take 2/1 to 6/4 on him probably. 

So who will fancy it then instead? Well, Bora will surely fancy this stage for Pascal Ackermann, it's quite similar to the stage he won in the Dauphiné last year, which had four Cat 3 climbs in the last 80kms, he beat EBH and Impey that day with the sprinters over 5 minutes down. He also won the Brussels Cycling Classic last year too, a very lumpy day in the saddle. 

There is a lot of pressure on Ackermann to deliver, what with him being taken instead of the in-form Sam Bennett, and he can be hit and miss with his results so it's not cut and dry he'll make it to the finish either, he DNFs a lot of races too. He has a very strong team of punchy climber types here with him though like McCarthy, Formolo, Majka and Benedetti and they will definitely be looking to rip it up on the climbs and in the run-in to the finish to stop the dropped riders getting back on. 

Fernando Gaviria is possibly a slilghtly better climber than Viviani, borne out by his resuts in just MSR alone, and he will really fancy this stage if he can hang in there over the climbs, he'll probably be the fastest sprinter left, but again, 7.7% might be on the limit of his abilities. 

Arnaud Démare is another who should fare better than most sprinters over the climbs, he's a former winner of MSR after all. His results have been pretty mediocre this season and he was passed easily by Bennett in stage 6 of Paris-Nice, despite getting the jump on him. He did win a lumpy stage in the TDF last year though and like Ackermann he has won the Brussels Classic. He has a really poor team with him for this sort of situation though, so he'll be piggy-backing other teams I think, he's quite good at doing that. But I give him a better chance than a lot of the sprinters of making the finish, possibly with better legs. 

Giacomo Nizzolo is someone I'd have fancied two or three years ago for this, but he just doesn't win enough these days. One win last season, one win this season, he's a nearly man who will probably finish 4th to 10th in most sprints here.

If Viviani doesn't make it over the hills, then it's unlikely Caleb Ewan will either, winning on the Hatta Dam is a very different matter to winning after a stage like this. His record in MSR isn't too bad though, 2nd last year and 10th the year before, but he's not in good enough form for me to have confidence in him for this stage.. I'll wait and watch and see whether he'll be worth backing in the days to come. 

If it's a really hard day which strips out a lot of the sprinters, we might see the likes of Juan José Lobato get involved, but he'll only be involved if there are very few decent sprinters left. Davide Cimolai, Sacha Modolo, Tosh Van Der Sande and Kristian Sbaragli are others who could get involved, but it's hard to see them beating the big guns here, regardless of how the stage pans out. 

Breakers - I was thinking about picking a few long-shot breakers too just in case a strong break makes it all the way, but it's like finding a needle in a haystack this early in the race. Thomas de Gendt is very short at just 18/1, he might wait for tougher days than this later in the race. Tosh Van der Sande is someone who might fancy a shot at the break though and would be a good shout if they make it all the way, or maybe, just maybe he's an outsider if it turns out to really be a tough-man's sprint.

Marco Haller is another wild-shot for the break at 125/1, he might fancy it. Conor Dunne probably will try getting up the road in honour of his new baby girl, but even at 500/1 I don't think he'll be winning this one.. Bardiani are sure to try to get someone in the break, the challenge is picking which one, but Enrico Barbin might like this one and he finished way down today, maybe he was trying to save his legs for a dig at this. 

So - nothing too crazy on the first road stage, anything can happen.. It's hard to know which way it will go, but I'm leaning towards 2000m of climbing, with 4.5kms at 7.7% causing a lot of damage and only the tougher guys making it to the finish. Arnaud Démare looks a good price then to get stuck in to at 13/1, even if a few sprinters like Gaviria do make it, he might be good enough to land a top 3 for us. 

Recommendations:

1pt e/w on Arnaud Démare at 13/1 with Will Hill

0.2pts win on Enrico Barbin at 100/1 with Bet365

0.2pts win on Tosh Van Der Sande at 80/1 with Bet365

0.2pts win on Marco Haller at 125/1 with Bet365

Matchbets:

Nizzolo to beat Modolo and Cimolai to beat Lobato - 2pts at 9/10

Add Gibbons to beat McCarthy to make it a treble, 1pt at 7/4

Sbaragli to beat Canola - 6/4 looks too big looking at their head-to-head stats, it should be closer to evens. 2pts on this.  

Roglic to beat Jungels - This is taking a bit of an insurance premium in case Viviani does make it to the sprint. Jungels could well take up the pulling for him with maybe 3kms to go, he'll pull off and then roll home down the peloton a bit. Roglic will stay attentive and near the front  and could finish ahead of him. And if it's a tough day and Viv doesn't make the finish, Jungels doesn't really have much to ride for, whereas Roglic will stay right at the front to stay out of trouble, perhaps even sprint. 2pts at 8/11