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Published on Friday, 27 April 2018 17:44

Giro d'Italia St 2

Haifa - Tel Aviv

Saturday 5th May, 167kms 

The second stage of the Giro in Israel sees them head up along the coast of the Mediterannean, on a stage that should end in a bunch sprint in Tel Aviv. That is, if the winds coming in off the sea don't cause havoc first!

There could be winds of 9-11mph coming in off the sea in the afternoon, and seeing as they spend over 70kms towards the end of the stage after the climb of Zikron Ya'Aqov hugging the coast, we could see some teams looking to dispose of some sprinters and cause splits that could cost some GC men time as well. So it could be a very, very nervous start to the race proper, what with it being the first road stage, which is always nervous, and the winds thrown in as well.

Stage 1 Review

Well what a mad opening day we had in Jerusalem. Chris Froome crashed in the morning recon ride, sliding out on an innocuous bend and coming down heavily on his right-hand side. Sky tried to say he was fine, but the evidence from fans' videos showed he was anything but fine. The video of the crash showed that he hit the ground hard and took a while to get up, and another video showed him limping heavily.. I tweeted at the time that Schachmann was 10/11 to beat Froome in a matchbet, and added him quite late to the blog too.. hopefully some of you took the cue to back him, as Schachmann rode a great race to easily beat him.

Froome is not only looking at a possibly injured body after today, but also a hefty deficit to some of the favourites here. He has lost 37" to Dumoulin already, who looked super-strong today. I didn't think he'd go full gas on that course after there had been so many crashes in the morning (Kanstansin Siutsou crashed out with a suspected broken collarbone and Lopez also crashed but wasn't hurt apparently) but maybe he saw the opportunity to go for Froome's jugular with him injured after the crash.. the chance to put some serious early time in to him.

His performance was enough to push our man Dennis down to 2nd, he had held the hot seat almost all day, his strong second half performance seeing off several riders who had beat him at the split. There was no sign of Van Emden - a terribly disappointing run from him, and Ryan Mullen blew up spectacularly too after going out too hard in the first part.

So a disappointing start from the stage bets point of view, but the Martin/Campanaerts double won and the Schachmann bet won if you managed to get on. The Dumoulin at 5/2 bet looks a bit better now, as does the Froome to not win a stage at 7/4, I wouldn't be surprised to see him crash again and pull out of the race.. might be the best thing all round for him to have to 'abandon' the race with everything going on..

As for the other GC favourites? Well, Dennis, if you could call him a GC man, has a nice lead on some of the mountain men, 37" on Froome, 33" on Pinot, 48" on Aru.. Winners of the day, besides Dumoulin, were Yates and Pozzovivo who finished 7th and 10th, losing just 20" and 27" respectively, and also Carlos Betancur.. an amazing TT from him to finish 11th.. we might have to revisit his 'not to win a stage' bet! Aru and Miguel Angel Lopez lost close to a minute, Lopez probably feeling the effects of that crash, and Sky had a pretty awful time, not one rider inside the top 20, Poels, Kiryienka and DLC letting their backers down.  

The Route

The stage starts in Haifa, the third largest city in Israel and after initially heading north to take in the int. sprint at Acres, they head inland for a little bit, across mostly totally flat ground. After 70kms they start a little climb, which although is higher than the KOM point of the day by 5m, it's a very gentle gradient. 

After 88.4kms they hit the first KOM point in the race, a chance for someone to pull on the first KOM jersey. The climb to Zikron Ya'Aqov (right) is short at 2.6kms, and the first km is easy at just 2.2%. The next km is a bit tougher at 7.1% average, but with it being so short, and so far from the finish it will have no impact whatsoever on the stage. 

After that they head back towards the coast and basically ride along a motorway more or less all the way to Tel Aviv. The road is dead flat, pretty wide and there really shouldn't be any problems until they start to hit the urban street furniture like roundabouts, speedbumps and traffic islands. With 2700m to go there is a sharp left, with 1800m to go a sharp right, and there is one last sharp right with 600m to go before they turn on to the finishing straight. 

Contenders and Favourites

It's really not a great field of sprinters we have here, with many of the best sprinters in the world choosing to give it a miss. No Kittel, Cavendish, Gaviria, Groenewegen, Démare, Greipel, Kristoff, Matthews.. in fact, of the PCS top sprinters rankings, only two of the top 20 sprinters in the worlds are here, namely Elia Viviani in 2nd place and Sam Bennett in 13th.

So it looks like it's going to be a battle between the two of them again, they are old enemies from way back when they came to blows after the finish line of the Tour of Britain stage in London when Bennett took Cavs wheel in the sprint forcing Viv out and took 2nd place ahead of him. Viv was none too impressed with this young upstart and tried to have a go at him, Bennett was having none of it..  

Elia Viviani has a good team with him here, with Sabatini, Schachmann, Morkov Stybar and Senechal forming one of the strongest leadout trains you are likely to see, regardless of the amount of sprinters in the race. And Viviani is in good winning form this year too, with 5 victories already this year, and 16 top 3 finishes altogether. He did struggle with the hills in Romandie, getting dropped on the first two stages, but he has nothing like those here to worry about. With that leadout, he has to be a hot favourite to make a winning start to the race. 

Can Sam Bennett stop him though? Well, he has yet to win a race this year, with 2nd to Hodeg in the first stage of Catalunya his best result, along with 3rd in stage 6. He was sick earlier in the year, something that seems to afflict him quite a lot, he'll be hoping to get to this race in full health and hopefully can get through the race with no crashes or mishaps for once. 

He's had a month to prepare for this now and has been working hard on his sprint training with the team, and it's not a bad team he has here with him either, with Patrick Konrad, Cesare Benedetti, Rudiger Selig, Felix Grosschartner and Andreas Schillinger here to drag him to the last 300m. In head to heads, over races where they have both finished in the top 25, Viviani has finished ahead of Bennet 53% of the time, so it's pretty close.

How does he beat Viviani? Well a good leadout is going to be vital. First off, they need to stay hidden until the last 3kms, none of this bravado hitting the front with 10kms to go.. let QSF do that, tuck in, save energy and pounce late. They are also going to have to match QSF in the last kilometre and deliver Bennett around 250m to go, possibly ahead of Viviani jumping, I think he needs to go before Viviani and try to hold him off rather than come from behind him. If he can get the jump on Viviani, he might just hold him off. 

So who else can get involved? With so few sprinters here, there will be a number of other guys who will be looking to take advantage of their opportunities of grabbing a Grand Tour stage win. 

Sacha Modolo, if can stay upright, can have a chance of getting involved too, but his leadout train leaves a lot to be desired compared to the two top teams here. Tom Van Asbroeck, Nathan Brown and Mitch Docker might be able to give him a bit of a leadout, but the rest of the team are lightweight climbers and they will be absolutely no use to him. He will have to surf wheels of the two main teams and just hope he can get out and a clear run to the line.. It's not likely he'll be faster than Viviani in a straight out sprint, but anything can happen in the first stage of the Giro.

Jakub Mareczko hopes to make a good start for Willier Trestina, he's a man that has won eight races already this year, more than Viviani, Bennett and Modolo put together. Ok, they have been in pretty shit races like the Tour du Moroc and Sharjah Tour, but he has 12 top 3 places to his name. He needs looking after, he's quite fragile in a hectic bunch sprint, and when it comes to racing against the big boys his record is pretty poor. Having said that though, he finished 2nd twice in the Giro last year, behind Gaviria and ahead of Bennett both times, so he is capable of pulling off a decent sprint. 

Danny Van Poppel won a stage in Valenciana in his very first start of the year, and since then has another three 2nds to his name in February.. But since then, it's dried up for him, as Groenewegen has taken over as the focus of the team's attention in sprints. It's his first GT since doing the Vuelta in 2015 (where he won a stage), but he has won stages in races like the Tour of Yorkshire, Burgos etc. 

Lotto NL have a decent team here with him, but one of the problems with DVP's chances is the fact that one of his team-mates might also be sprinting - Enrico Battaglin. They will have to focus on one rider for the sprint, it's probably going to be DVP as he is in much the better sprinting form, but Battaglin has two stage wins in the Giro to his name already in his career. Ok, it's been four years since he last won a race, that stage to Oropa of all places. But as I said, it's been four years since his won and in fact that was the last time he's even finished in the top 3 of a race either. I would be really surprised if Battaglin was to finish ahead of him. 

And then you have the likes of Nicolo Bonifazio, Francesco Gavazzi, Rudiger Selig and Jempy Drucker who could also come close, and how about Guillaume Boivin? The Canadian riding for the Israel Cycling Academy is not what you would call a prolific finisher, but has a number of top ten placings to his name last year. The Israel Cycling Academy team will be going flat out here to try to get a good result and they also have Zak Dempster and Kristian Sbaragli who could get up for the sprint.. hard to see them landing even a podium spot though, but you know that they will be trying their hardest, just in case Netanyahu locks them up if they fail. 

Update - 04/05, 19:00: Sam Bennnett rode an 'interesting' race on Monday in the Eschborn Frankfurt. With the race blown apart on the hilly course, and only about 40 riders left in the peloton coming to the last lap, you'd have been forgiven for assuming Bennett might not have made it.. But made it he had, and not only that, was right there on Kristoff's wheel coming to the last 5kms, looking confident. Bora had men, and they played it smart, only coming to the front in the last 2kms or so, with Sam sitting in the boxseat behind his leadout man.. but then it all went a bit pear-shaped.

It was all Gaviria's fault really, he came to the front far too soon with around 400m to go, went charging in to a tight left hander that took them on to the home straight, and on seeing the camera motorbike go straight on he suddenly, and quite abruptly changed direction, looking to go straight on too.. This caused Bennett to react too and he not only lost momentum, but suddenly was at the head of the race with over 300m left. He said after he couldn't get the gear turning again after the incident and dropped out of contention with about 100m to go.

He was gutted, as was Gaviria, but he says he was delighted with his legs ahead of the Giro. It's a pity we didn't get to see him sprinting in full flow against Kristoff and Matthews though to gauge his form, but it was encouraging to see him up there and full of confidence. Viviani is sounding confident, QSF are looking strong.. Modolo has been saying all week his target is to win a stage, which is good for our 'to win a stage' bet, but doesn't sound great for our Points Jersey bet, that he's not talking about that as a target.. but then again, he is better off keeping that sort of thing to himself for now.. 

So the odds are out now, and as I sort of expected, Viviani is odds on.. very short at just 8/11, we saw 1/2 shot Dennis turned over at odds on for the second time in a few weeks today. Bennett is 11/4 and that offers a bit more value, but Modolo at 11/1 takes my e/w cash, we may as well get fully behind him, he might be the bravest and smartest in the chaotic finish of the first sprint of the Giro. And what about this one... I wouldn't be surprised to see Viviani blow it near the finish tomorrow and disappear, it happens sometimes with him, and who is the rider we've been seeing pick up the mantle when that happens? Michael Morkov, that's who.. He finished 2nd and 5th in stages of Romandie.. and he's 150/1.. at that price it's worth a punt.. 

Recommendations:

1pt E/W on Sacha Modolo at 11/1 with 365

0.2pts E/W on Michael Morkov at 150/1 with 365

Matchbets:

Gibbons to beat Sbaragli - 2pts at 5/6

Bonifazio to beat Debuscherre and Drucker to beat Pedersen - 2pts on the double at 11/10 when Bet365 get around to allowing multiples