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Published on Friday, 27 April 2018 19:23

Giro D'Italia St 1

Jerusalem - Jerusalem

Friday 4th May, 9.7km ITT

The Giro starts on a Friday again this year to allow for the transfer back to Italy from its controversial starting point in Israel. And unlike last year, we do get an individual TT to start the race, over a wavy 9.7km course. 

It's not a prologue, it's too long for that, it's an individual TT of nearly 10kms around the streets of Jerusalem, where the start and finish are just a stone's throw apart. But don't go throwing any stones around here, you're likely to get shot by the Israeli military. It's a historic stage in that it's the first time ever a Grand Tour stage has started outside of Europe, and although the decision has been widely cirticized, the RCS were not for changing. 

It may not have a major impact on the destination of the trophy in three week's time, but it will show us who's hot and who's not, and there could be some decent time gaps between some of the GC men by the end of the day. There are lots of bends to negotiate, 19 in total, many of which are 90 degree bends, but as the roads are pretty wide they shouldn't cause too many problems.. It rolls over little hills but nothing to worry about, 

The finish lies upon Shlomo ha Melekh street, which sits in the shadow of the Western Wall which divides the Old City from the rest of Jerusalem. The time trial avoids the roads of the Old City entirely. Officially, this is to evade narrow, broken roads but is more likely due to the security risk of having the race enter the 'occupied' half of Jerusalem. The stage was originally 10.1kms and was labelled as 'West Jerusalem to West Jerusalem' which caused outrage, forcing the organisers to rename the stage as 'Jerusalem to Jerusalem'.

The Route

Pretty easy to figure out the route looking at the map and profile below, they start on Yitshak Kariv street and almost immediately take a 90 degree left-hander, head south and then back up north again, left,  north, and through the intermediate check after 5.1kms before they head back to the finish on Gershon Argon Street. There are nineteen bends to negotiate, but lots of long stretches on big wide roads to put the power down too, but one last chicance to weave through in the last 500m. 

Analysis and Picks

We have a quality field of time triallists here ready to do battle to try to win the first Pink Jersey of the race, a jersey they may well hang on to for the next two stages, depending on how the sprinters do in the TT and who wins the first two stages (and probably will need intermediate bonus seconds too!)

Starting with Chris Froome, he's the top TT'er here according to ProCyclingStats rankings, and will be watched closely to see how he does in this TT after a less than inspiring season to date. Dogged with controversy for months now relating to his adverse finding for Salbutemol, he's looked weighed down and fed up with the circus and keeps insisting he just wants to concentrate on his racing. 

Off the pace in Andalucia, finishing 27" behind his team-mate David De La Cruz in the 14km TT, he also struggled a little out on the road and finished in 10th on the GC. Off the pace also in Tirreno, he was only 11th in the 10km TT, 20" behind Rohan Dennis and was beaten by the likes of Jack Bauer and Gianni Moscon. He lost 4'31" on the flat stage 6 won by Kittel after a late mechanical, dropping him down to 34th overall, but more significantly, on the tough summit finish of stage 4 won by Landa, he lost 1'10".

He went a bit better in the Tour of the Alps, finishing 4th and was there or thereabouts on every stage finish. But there was no TT to see if he has progressed, and some of his 1000rpm attacks were just laughable, all spin, not a lot of power and didn't last long. 

So what of his chances here? Well, it's a long race, he know's it won't be won or lost on this stage alone.. But he may want to lay down a marker early and let them all know he is here to race and isn't bothered about the controversy going on around him. But also, I think he will be mindful of making any silly mistakes and jeopardising his chances in the race with a crash. I think overall I'd be against him rather than with him, I think he might need a few more stages to get up to top gear and he'll just want to be ready to stay with the leaders on Etna.

And his record in shorter TTs isn't great recently, in the 14km opening TT of the Tour last year he was only 6th and you have to go back to 2014's Dauphiné to find the last time he won a TT around this distance (10kms).  I think he will be 5th to 10th again. 

Tom Dumoulin is his big rival for the overall title here, the defending champ will want to start powerfully. His season has been beset by mechanicals and misfortune, he'll be praying that nothing goes awry during this TT. His mechanical in the TT in Abu Dhabi saw him lose around 30" as he got a bike change (and filled the air with expletives) and he lost to Dennis by 31", so it would have been extremely close and he could well have beaten him. After crashing out of Tirreno he's only raced MSR in March and then LBL a month later, where he finished 15th and was prominent all day. 

Dumoulin goes well over shorter distances though, the last five prologues he did, between 4km and 8kms he finished 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 9th and 1st. He has won 3 out of the last 7 TTs he has done and in the others he finished 12th in Abu Dhabi because of his mechanical, 2nd, 3rd and 5th.. so podiumed on 5/7 and should have been 6/7. Last year's Binck Bank Tour TT was 9kms, he was 3rd, 5" behind Kung. I think he will be top 3, but can he win it?

Rohan Dennis is the hot 4/9 favourite to take it, he is an outstanding TTer and goes very well over long and short distances. He got a bit of a shock though in the Tour de Romandie opening prologue when he was beaten by his young team-mate Tom Bohli by 0.6 seconds. He was also beaten by Michael Matthews by a second and Primus Roglic by less than a second..

There is a good chance though in my mind that although he was giving it almost full gas I think he might have held back a touch with the bigger prize of the Giro prologue in mind, that was a dangerous course.. Also, that hill in the last kilometre didn't suit him very well, this course will suit him a lot better. 

Winner of the Australian TT title again in Jan, winner of the 10km TT in Tirreno, winner of the 12.6km TT in Abu Dhabi, he has the best TT form of any rider in the world right now. And it's not just right now, he has won 12 out of the last 25 TTs he has done going back to the start of 2015, almost a 50% win rate which is incredible. And not only that, he has finished 2nd another 4 times and in the top 6 a further 6 times. Top 6 in 22 out of his last 25 TTs. He is my favourite for this too and it will be a massive surprise if he is not in the first 3. 

Jos Van Emden is the 5th best TTer according to PCS stats, and he has been going ok in the short TTs this year too. 4th in Abu Dhabi, 16" behind Dennis, 2nd in Tirreno, just 4" behind Dennis - he has shown good legs and will like this course too where he'll be able to put the power down. Winner of three TTs in the last 3 years, top 3 ten times, he won the final TT in the Giro last year in fine style, beating Tom Dumoulin in the process (although Dumoulin's situation was very different to JVE at that point in the race.. ) I think he will be there or thereabouts in this TT too and I wouldn't be surprised to see him top 3 it again. 

Victor Campanaerts is a former team-mate of JVE but now rides for Lotto Soudal and will be wearing the kit of European TT champion after winning it last year beating JVE by 21". 2nd in the Belgian TT champs to Yves Lampaert last year, winner of it in 2016, he was 2nd to Thomas in the 20km TT in the Algarve earlier in the year, but just 16th in the 10km TT in Tirreno, 23" behind Dennis. In Romandie just last week he was first of the rest behind the four riders within 1", he finished 5th, 5" down. He seems to go slightly better to me over longer distances though, around the 30-40km mark, he might be in the 5th to 10th bracket here I feel. 

Ryan Mullen started his season with a win in the 14.4km TT in San Juan for his new team Trek Segafredo.. But when you see that Rafal Makjka was 3rd in that on a flat TT you know the quality of the opposition wasn't much. But Mullen is quality, and is getting stronger it seems. The Trek TT bike will be a great help to him, the TT bikes he's been riding on up to now have been pretty awful. 3rd in the Euros TT championships last year, just 4" behind Campanaerts, he's had a few near misses over the years, none closer than the U23 Worlds he lost by less than a second. 

He seems to go better over the longer TTs to me though, his record in short prologues/TTs is pretty poor, it takes him a while to get in to top gear.. but when he gets there he can hold it there for a long time. He looked very strong in the spring Classics though, riding prominently in several races, including the Tour of Flanders, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he goes in this first big test for him with his new team and his new bike. They are bringing him to the Giro to try to perform well in the TTs, so the pressure is on.. He could well take the lead and hold the hot seat for quite a while, but it will take an extraordinary performance I think to hold off the top guys like Dennis and Dumoulin.. but a top 5 is not out of the question. 

Tony Martin and Vasil Kiryienka are two very similar riders in that they are both former World Champions, but have fallen a long way from that sort of level lately to consider them as major contenders for this TT. Tony Martin used to be the TT king, but other than the German TT champs last year you have to go back to the World Champs in 2016 to find the last time he won a TT. 

But it's not like he hasn't been close - 6th in the Algarve this year (but was 49" behind Geraint), 9th in the World's last year (but 1'39" behind Dumoulin), he also finished 2nd in the Algarve, Belgium Tour and Dauphiné TTs last year. An interesting point about him though is that you have to go back to 2008 to find the last time he won a prologue, another diesel engine that needs a bit of time to warm up. But he did win a 9.4km TT in Suisse in 2014, beating Dumoulin, Dennis and Cancellara. He also won the 15km TT in the TOB in 2016, again beating Dennis and Dumoulin, but I think he'll be finishing behind them this time.

Vasil Kiryienka - World TT champ in 2015, he's not won a TT since the Chrono Des Nations in 2016. Including finishing 2nd to Tony Martin in the 2016 World's though he has finished in the top 10 of TTs on 13 out of the last 16 times, five times finishing in the top 3. He has been a bit hit and miss though and has let down his backers on several occassions as a fancied runner, which Kiryienka will we get here? 

He finished 3rd this year in the 19km TT in the Itzulia, 11" behind Roglic but only 10th in the 10km TT in Tirreno and 9th in the Algarve, 50" behind Thomas. As he will be put to work like a dog for the rest of the Giro, this might be his only chance of a good result in the race, but also there will be pressure on him possibly to conserve energy for the task ahead. I'm steering clear of him anyway. 

And then you have the likes of Mads Pedersen, Woet Poels, Marc Soler, Luis Leon Sanchez, David De La Cruz, Alex Dowsett, Georg Preidler and Max Schachmann who will all go well too probably, but we're unlikely to see any of them troubling the podium, but it will be interesting to see how DLC and Pedersen go.

So there you have it, stage 1 preview done. Hard to see anyone beating Dennis over this course and distance and he has to be backed to carry on his run of fine results I think.. But I'll make final decisions once I see some prices around Wednesday or whenever they are out 

Update - 01/05/2018: So the prices are out now and no surprise really, Dennis is the 4/9 favourite.. that's very short, but probably right.. if he was something like 4/5 I'd be all over him, but 4/9 allows no room for a small incident or mechanical.. Maybe he'll go closer to 4/5 on Betfair later in the week and I'll think about backing him then. So we are left to try to find a bet without Dennis, and value is thin on the ground there too. Tom Dumoulin could be our 'bet to nothing' at 9/2, we make small profit if he podiums, which he surely will I think, and we score 9/2 if he happens to beat Dennis..

Jos Van Emden is tempting at 6/1, we get a slightly bigger profit if he podiums, and maybe, just maybe he'll be gunning for this a lot more than Dumoulin who has his eyes on overall glory. Tony Martin at 14/1 will have his supporters for old times sake, but I won't be one of them, and Campanaerts at 18/1 is almost tempting enough to have a go at, but I said above I think the course is too short for him, same goes for Ryan Mullen at a massive 50/1, let's save our stake on him for the later TT I think.

Remi Cavagna is a surprise for me at just 22/1, he has done nothing of note on a TT bike in recent years, but he was twice the U23 French TT champion.. this is a different level altogether though.. Overall then, hard to look past Dennis, but he was beaten last week.. different circumstances I know, but we are not left with many options here.. Jos Van Emden is acceptable at 6/1, you might even get bigger closer to the off from another bookie looking to dodge Dennis and Dumoulin.. But guess what.. Bet365 are win only... so until they sort that out, or another bookie comes out with E/W betting, it looks like a no-bet on the winner market. And there are no match-bets out yet, I'll update this again once they are live. 

Update - 03/05/18, 19.35... First off, apologies guys for the site being down for the last 24 hours or so, I've been let down by my hosting company who migrated an old version of my site from April 1st and I've been fighting with them since last night to get it sorted. Anyway, we're up and running again on time for stage 1.. 

So it's the day before the Giro TT starts and we finally have some top 3 markets for the TT.. There is a 'Top 3' market on Bet365, but also on Betfair, but that has very little liquidity at the moment, so hard to gauge whether you'll get filled at a decent price or not. What price is a decent price? Well, a rough guide is that the top 3 on it's own should be about 1/5th of the win odds.. so if JVE is 7/1, we should hope for around 2.4 or better. If I got 6/4 about JVE for the top 3 I'd take it.. (I have a back bet in at 2.5)..

As for TomDum, Evens or better would be great, but it looks like the best we can hope for is 4/5.. that is tempting, but I'm less interested in that, Dumoulin might start slow in this race.. Campanaerts was backed at 2/1 on Betfair, which I thought was very short, but he's just 7/4 with Bet365.. I'd want 3/1 I think. 

10/1 on Ryan Mullen might get me interested, but there's no odds on Betfair and just 7/1 on 365, 6/1 on Tony Martin would interest me.. Other than that, not really interested. I put in a back bet on Dennis at 5/6 (1.86) and I got filled at that price, then laid it off at 1.76, before backing it again at 1.86.. So I have averaged over 9/10 and I'm happy with that. If you can get close to 5/6 or 9/10 on Betfair, I'd take it, in fact, I'd take down to 4/5, he's only 1/2 with the bookies, and I think he will be too good for these guys. 

One word of warning though, the book closes at 11.45am UK time, and Dennis is 42nd off the ramp, so he will be setting an early benchmark time - it could be a long day in the hot seat for him. One thing that the riders have been complaining a bit about I've seen is the heat, but that shouldn't bother Dennis, being an Aussie. There is a little wind of around 5-6mph in the afternoon, which looks like switching to more of a tailwind in the latter parts for the later starters, but I am not sure it will make much of a difference.

Recommendations:

3pts on Rohan Dennis at 1.8 or better on Betfair

2pts on Jos Van Emden at 11/8 or better on Betfair to finish in the top 3

Matchbets

Campanaerts to beat Pedersen and Martin to beat Cavagna - 2pts at 11/10 with Bet365 

Mullen to beat Dowsett and Lopez to beat Aru - 2pts at 6/4

Pinot to beat Wellens - 1pt at 13/8 with 365 - this looks like a big price seeing as Pinot has beaten Wellens in 5 out of the 6 TTs they have done together

Schachmann to beat Froome - mentioned it in twitter after Froome's crash in the recon.. I had 3pts at 10/11