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Published on Wednesday, 16 May 2018 19:10

Giro d'Italia St 12

Osimo to Imola

Thurs 17th May, 214kms

A long, hot day on the coast of Italy, taking them north towards Rimini and then inland to the F1 track at Imola where they will do a final circuit up and over the Tre Monti climb. 

The Giro finished on the track at Imola in 2015, when none othe than Ilnur Zakarin took the win at odds of 200/1, a major shock on the day.. He had been part of a break that included Ruben Fernandez, Carlos Betancur and Matteo Montaguti and he attacked away with just over 16kms left to solo to victory. 

Will we see something similar again, or is it nailed on for a sprint finish of some sort? There has been no true breakaway win yet in this year's Giro, every break has been reeled in before the finish so far in 10 road stages. I'm not counting Mohoric's win as being from an original breakaway, it's sort of a half and half.. he only went with 30kms to go.. 

Stage 11 Review

Bam.. Simon Yates just blew it up today. What a brilliant finish to the stage, what an awesome win for Simon Yates. But as good as Yates was, I was seriously impressed with Tom Dum.. While Yates was blowing the race apart, only one man was able to keep him within touching distance. He only lost 2" on the road to him today, a superb effort. And Bet365 have reacted to that performance by making him the 10/11 favourite now to take the race, with Yates at 2/1 and Thibaut Pinot at 11/2. Froome is 18/1 with them but has been drifting out to around 60s on Betfair. 

Where were all the favourites for the stage? Way down the hill.. Formolo, Pozzovivo and Pinot came out with some credit, but Lopez, Aru and Bennett lost time. Dennis lost time, but was impressive I thought to finish where he did in 9th, just 18" down. As for Froome, another bad day at the office, shipping 40" to Yates. 

We had Luis Leon in the break, but the break wasn't strong enough and didn't have enough of the top teams represented in it to be let get far enough up the road to hold on. He gave it a good go, but wasn't to be. Then Wellens and Stybar gave it a go in the last 4kms and for a while I had visions of a 1-2 as they gapped the field. But Yates swept past with ease as they hit the wall, Stybar being the first to capitulate. Maybe they should have waited and tried later, but it's doubtful they could have beaten Yates anyway. 

So nothing with the win bets, at least Yates beat Battaglin at 2/1 in their matchbet to limit the damage, Battaglin was another who disappointed, again, I don't know how they made him 4/1 favourite at one point. Froome slips further away and I think I'll leave that hedge on him for the time being, he may not even finish this race.. 

The Route

The stage course is perfectly flat and runs almost entirely along the ss. 16 Adriatica, on wide and straight roads, for 130kms, passing Ancona, Pescara and Rimini. The route then runs almost straight along the ss. 9 Via Emilia for a further 60 km, leading through Santarcangelo di Romagna, Cesena and Forlì, into the Imola Racetrack and into the final “Tre Monti” circuit.

The final circuit (15.3kms) is raced partly within the Imola Racetrack, and partly outside it. From the finish line (on the pit straight), the route covers around 3.5 km of the track, up to the Variante Alta. Here, the stage course leaves the racetrack, where the road narrows markedly, takes the climb leading to Tre Monti (where there are KOM points). The climb itself averages 4.2% for just over 4kms, but there are sections over 7% on the way up, hitting a max of 10%.

After the top of the hill it then descends on quite wide and well-paved roads up to the flamme rouge, which leads to the entry point of the Rivazza corner, approx. 850m before the finish. The last bend is 650m from the finish line, followed by a long home straight, just bending slightly, on 8m wide and perfectly level asphalt road. It should end in a sprint finish, but with the top of the Tre Monti coming less than 8kms from the finish, if a little split happens the front-runners could just make it to the finish alone. 

Contenders and Favourites

So another little hill before what should be a sprint finish.. who will be contesting it? Well the way he's been riding, I wouldn't be surprised to see Elia Viviani go out the back door again on this climb. I know it's only 4kms or so at around 4%, but he has been dropped on every little hill so far in this race, he was one of the first dropped again today.

And the other teams know this and will rip it up that climb in an effort to ditch him. Bora will really crush it up this hill, Grossschartner has looked very strong on the hills, he was driving hard on Tuesday to help keep the break behind, and the other guys will all do their utmost to set up Sam Bennett for a second stage win. 

And I don't think it will just be Bennett - Bahrain Merida will also probably try to help, they might fancy Niccolo Bonifazio for this sprint, even if he is a bit hit and miss with his finishing too. LottoNL Jumbo have two cards to play now too depending on how tough the final hill becomes. They know that Enrico Battaglin is sprinting well, he came close to Bennett on that flat finish at the end of Stage 10, if they can shake out the weaker sprinters, he could have a chance of a top 10. 

And they also have Danny Van Poppel who has a good chance here to move from the 5th to 10th sort of places to a podium place, particularly if Viviani and some other weaker sprinters are out of the picture. He should have no problems getting over the hill and it may be that they all work for him if so, he'd have a better flat sprint finish than Battaglin. LottoNL have been working well for him at the finish, but in the last sprint he hesitated at the wrong moment and lost a good position. I think they'll get it right tomorrow and put in him with a shot at victory. 

Sacha Modolo has been very disappointing really up until now, his performances on the little hills has left a lot to be desired. It's strange to see a guy who was so strong in the Flanders Classics come here and be so abject, you'd have thought this race would be a higher priority for him in terms of his training schedule and preparation. These kinds of hills, at the speed they will be going at 10kms from home, are a totally different effort though to a short sprint up the Flanders type hills.. But still, you'd think he'd be able to hang in there, he didn't do too bad today finishing 1'05" down, but I just can't trust him. 

Clement Venturini has been 6th and 7th in two of the three sprints, but got lost on the second sprint in Israel and has been dropped on all other stages. He might make it over the hill, but he will be under pressure and might find himself too far back when it comes to the last 5 or 6kms.. It's going to be very hard to make up ground on the descent as they will all be going about 80kmph, the guys at the front will have the advantage. 

Mads Pedersen has finished 8th, 9th and 11th so far, he'll probably be in a similar sort of position here, he doesn't have the speed to win a flat sprint like this, but I think Trek will be pushing hard to try to give him the best opportunity possible, they'll be working very hard on the climb. Ryan Gibbons, Manuel Belletti, Kristian Sbaragli and Baptiste Planckaert are all hit and miss as well, with regards to getting over this hill, and also they are 5th to 15th placers, not podium sprinters. 

The other thing to consider - if Viviani is the price he is and I think he's not going to make it over the hill, then his team-mates who might are very big prices if they do. In particular Max Schachmann and Michael Morkov, either of them could sprint. It's possibly more likely to be Schachmann though, as Morkov might be asked to stay and try to drag Viviani over the hill, whereas Schachmann will be working hard to stay at the front as he's still top 20 in the GC. 

So in conclusion - I think Viviani is going to struggle on the hill, I've no interest in him at 2/1. Sam Bennett shouldn't and he's my bet for today. He did brilliantly to be about the only sprinter to make it with that group on that crazy stage 10, he has a lot of power in his legs at the moment, and I think he will take this stage again. I picked him at 9/2 for this stage in 2017, he's 9/4 this year, but hopefully he'll do better than his 3rd behind Gaviria and Marezcko last year. I actually got 4/1 on Betfair when the market opened, I'm very happy with that, it's still worth taking the 3/1 and bigger that's there now, or if you have to the 9/4 with 365 (you might get bigger with one of the others). I'm also going to chance an e/w on DVP as he's 14/1 and I think he might be able to nab a podium this time with better positioning on the big wide circuit. 

Also - I've been thinking about the team classification bet too that we have on M-S.. I think we're still in a good position, they lead Astana by almost 4 mins and Sky by 4'30".. but with Chaves in trouble, they could lose a big chip in their game.. hopefully it was just a 'jour sans', but he really hit a wall after just 12kms on stage 10, and struggled on the final hill again today... But Yates, Nieve and Haig seem to be riding really well..

But.. they have come out all guns blazing, will they be able to keep it up for another week and a half, with some of the toughest stages to come? Astana look their biggest danger in the team market now, Sky look like they are really struggling and they may even lose Froome at this rate. In fact, 365 have now made Astana 5/4 favourites, with M-S 7/4, I guess in reaction to Chaves getting dropped again today, despite them increasing their lead in the competition. I'm not sure I agree with them and I'm having another point at 7/4. 

Recommendations:

2pt win on Sam Bennett at 3/1 or bigger on Betfair (I've taken 4/1)

0.5pts e/w on Danny Van Poppel at 14/1

0.1pt e/w on Max Schachmann at 150/1 with 365

Matchbets

DVP to beat Bonifazio - 2pts at evens

Modolo to beat Venturini and Pedersen to beat Roelandts - 3pts at evens