Details

Published on Wednesday, 02 May 2018 18:10

Giro - Other Markets 

A selection of other bets that caught my eye..

I've done the Favourites and who I think will win the Sprints jersey and the KOM jersey. Here I take a look at some of the other markets that are available such as Team Classification, young riders and more. 

There's a lot of different bets available for the Giro and I've taken a look at the ones I'm interested in. I'm not saying by any means back them all, but have a look through, see which ones you agree with and stake accordingly! I may add some more bets here as the race goes on and we start to get a picture of who's going well and who's not. 

Young Riders Classification

This market looks a foregone conclusion in most people's eyes, including the bookmakers, they have installed Lopez as the 1/5 favourite, with a 'win-only' market. So pointless was that market I asked Bet365 to add a 'Without Lopez. market to give us something to get stuck in to. 

They have made Sam Oomen the 9/4 favourite and the young Dutchman is a stalwart in the peloton now, it's hard to remember that he's just 22 years old. He has been going alright so far this year, finishing 13th in the Algarve and Paris-Nice and a very impressive 12th in LBL. In his first Grand Tour last year he was sitting in 13th in the Vuelta but had to abandon on stage 14th due to a stomach virus. It will be interesting to see what sort of role he will be asked to perform in the services of Tom Dumoulin, will he be given some free reign to go after a top 10 placing? 

Jack Haig has been flying this season as well this year, 14th in LBL was a great result for him, but he was also going well in Itzulia and finished 16th overall, 2nd in the youth category.. but this is a different league altogether and I'm not sure he'll be up there in the third week. 

I spoke about Richard Carapaz already for the KOM jersey and if he does go after it then that might be to the detriment of his GC hopes.. so for consistency I'm saying he won't be up there in the GC. Giulio Ciccone could be anything in this race, he could be a revelation or he could do something in the first week or so and disappear after that.. Instead I think I'll plump for a rider I'm becoming a massive fan of, young Ben O'Connor.

His rise over the last few years has been incredible, especially when you consider he only started riding bikes at 17.. He finished 5th in the Tour of Austria last year, including winning a spectacular stage that included a Cat 1 and a HC climb.. Giulio Ciccone was 1'46" back in 4th, with Lopez 2'05" back in 15th..  And he stepped it up another notch this year with his stage win and fine 7th place in the ToTA, taking the young riders competition in the process. At 12/1 without Lopez, I think it offers a bit of value. 

Recommendations:

1pt win on Ben O'Connor (without Lopez) at 12/1 with Bet365

Team Classification

Team classification - a tricky market to work out, as anything can happen to disrupt a team's plan, like Valverde crashing out of the Tour last July.. Also, you need to try to find a team that will score three guys high up the results in every stage, as it's the aggregate time of the top three finishers every stage added together that decides this competition. So you will have teams who will work for their leader and then fade away a long way to the top of a climb, thus maybe having rider 2 and 3 lose quite a bit, and you will have teams who will ride steady and consistent and try to place several guys in the top 20 so as to score highly in the team prize. Then you have the teams who will have riders go in breakaways, if a break can win with 3 or 4 minutes in hand, that can help greatly too. 

And of course, Astana are the 6/4 favourites - who knows what they are on this year, but it certainly seems to be working.. Lieuwe Westra has admitted what we all more or less suspected anyway, that Astana are another dirty team that will do anything to get results. And the results have been flying in this year, with win after win. And not only are they scoring win after win, but they are dominating many races in terms of numbers, in race after race we are seeing 3, 4 or even 5 Astana riders at the business end of a race.

An example being in the ToTA recently on stage 2, there were only about 14 riders left at one point, and 5 of those were Astana men - Lopez, Hirt, Bilbao, Sanchez and Zeits. Lopez went on to win the stage. They also finished 1st and 2nd in stage 1 with Bilbao and Sanchez, and 1st in stage 4 with Sanchez.. And they are going to score highly here too.. they will have Lopez, Sanchez, Zeits, Kangert and Vilella finishing high up in most of the mountain stages, Sanchez possibly winning from breaks, Bilbao and Lutsenko from breaks or punchy finishes.

They won't do great in the TTs, they will lose time to others there, but they are all riding so well, I wouldn't be surprised to see that belief flipped on its head also. 

Their rivals in the betting, and a team I really think will give them a run for their money is Mitchelton-Scott, who are 2/1 with Bet365. They have a multi-pronged approach to this race, with lots of riders potentially able to go well here. And where their strength might lie is in the fact that they might have guys who are just below the top level here.. Why is that good? Well Chaves and Yates might not be able to go with the absolute best guys when they go for it some days.. but they won't be far behind.. and they might be together, or not far apart.. so will get two home inside the top 10 or 15 maybe. 

Add in the fact that Mikel Nieve shouldn't be far behind either, and may even be attacking regularly, and Romain Kreuziger could be mr. Consistency coming home regularly in the top 20, and Jack Haig will be fighting it out for the Young Riders classification, and we could see a lot of the Mitchelton guys rolling home high up on lots of stages. So much so, that I think they might just be better than Astana and I'd rather be on them at 2/1 than Astana at 6/4.

Team Sky are 7/2 and you'd expect them to go well too.. Froome *should* go well in this race, he will be scoring high consistently on the tough mountain stages, and will do very well in the TTs too.. Ellisonde, Poels and Henao should do well in the mountains, De La Cruz and Puccio could do well in breaks and on the tougher, punchy stages also.. but we often see a Sky train rip it up a mountain to the last 3kms or so and then blow up, with riders almost coming to a standstill.. And we could see that again.. I'm loathe to back them, and I think we could see Froome and Ellissonde on their own on quite a few of the finishes with dead bodies scattered down the mountain. 

Movistar are 6/1 and I think their raggle-taggle bunch of mavericks in this race will be all over the place and will not have the consistency to score highly enough. 12/1 shots UAE Team Emirates have Aru going for the GC, he should be top 10 or so on all the climbing stages, But I fear for the rest of them.. Atapuma and Polanc might do alright, Ulissi might get in breaks and do well on the punchy finishes, but the rest of the team will not offer much support. Bahrain Merida are 20/1, but again, after Pozzovivo, Siutsou and Visconti you are struggling to find guys who can finish high consistently. 

Recommendation:

3pts win on Mitchelton Scott at 2/1 with Bet365

Adding Movistar to beat Bahrain at 4/11.. They've lost Siutsou to a broken collarbone in the TT warm-up, big loss to Bahrain. Short price, but should land easily i think. 5pts at 4/11

Top 10 Finish

Top ten fancies.. 

I have already given Rohan Dennis the big-up on the overall preview, and maybe it's a long shot to get him on the podium (and that's why he was 80/1!), but a top 10 at 5/4 might be more likely. I think his TT'ing will keep him minutes ahead of some of the other guys and he'll be able to stay with most of them on a lot of these climbs, there aren't too many totally brutal finishes bar the Zoncolan. 2pts at 5/4

Gianluca Brambilla - not one that popped in to my mind when thinking about the overall, but I've been told by a pro that knows him that he's sure he'll be riding for GC. In the unfamiliar colours of Trek now, he rode ok in the Tour of Croatia last week, finishing 8th on the GC. He actually led the Giro for a while in 2016 after winning the stage to Arezzo, but finished in 22nd place, and he also finished 13th overall in the Vuelta in 2015. I still think it might be a bit ambitious, but at 7/2, he is worth a shot. 1pt at 7/2

None of the shorter priced ones offer any value to be honest and in some cases, like Meintjes, Aru, Chaves, I'd rather be laying than backing at those prices. 

Top 6 Finish

No liquidity on Betfair so far as of 7.30am on Wed morning, it might get better by Thursday evening. If I can get decent odds on Bennett for it, I might have a go on him. 

Top 3 Finish

Nothing really appeals on the 'to finish in the top 3' side, but Bet365 are also offering odds of riders NOT to finish in the top 3.. I think the 2/5 on Aru is money in the bank, but also I am going to have a dabble on Froome to not finish in the top 3 at 7/4.. I know it sounds crazy, and you can make up your own mind on this one, whether you're a Froome fan or not, but I just have a funny feeling we could have a crazy race and we could see Froome stumble along the way. A 'jour sans' or an accident could see him lose time, and there is a huge amount of pressure on his shoulders too. Just a dabble, 1pt a 7/4 

Overall Head to Heads

Based on my general thoughts in my overall preview, here are my overall head to head picks. 

Dennis to beat Geniez - 2pts at 5/6

Carapaz to beat Sepulveda and Pinot to beat Aru - 2pts at 6/4

Brambilla to beat Konrad - 2.5pts at 4/5

Longshot - O'Connor to beat Torres, Luis Leon to beat Bilbao, Lopez to beat Chaves, Pozzo to beat Yates and Pinot to beat Aru - 1pt at 7.4/1

Rider Stage Wins

How many stage wins will these riders achieve? I picked four last year and they all landed for a profit of 10pts, hopefully we can do something similar this year: 

Betancur to NOT win a stage - 3.5pts at 2/7- I think this is money in the bank, he is not the rider we want him to be, he might not even reach Rome

Fabio Aru to NOT win a stage - 2pts at 5/4 - This could be a tight one, but I think he will be struggling just off the main guys for most of the tough stages and unless he loses a lot of time along the way I don't think he'll be allowed go on a break. The likes of Froome, Lopez and Dumoulin should be able to cover anything Aru throws at them, and will out sprint him at the finish.

Sacha Modolo to win a stage - 3pts at 11/10 - As I have outlined in the Points preview, I think Modolo will be going all guns blazing for a stage win here, for his new fiancé, and I think he's capable of it.. He could even land it inside the first 5 stages. 

Thibaut Pinot to win a stage - 3pts at 4/6 - Pinot is one of the best finishers of the GC lot and I think he'll find himself on maybe more than one occassion when he could be sprinting for a win.. And if his GC challenge falters for whatever reason, he's a good breakaway candidate too. 

King of the Mountains Head-to-Head 

Nieve to beat Visconti - 2.5pts at Evens

Luis Leon Sanchez to beat Atapuma - 2pts at evens 

Gesink to beat Hermans, Woods to beat Formolo and Lopez to beat Aru - 2pts at 2.37/1

Team Classification Matchbets

Not a lot interest me really, and they are not offering multiples - only one that interests me a little is Mitchelton-Scott to beat Astana, but I'm going to leave it I think.