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Published on Tuesday, 01 September 2020 20:44

TDF 2020 Stage 5

Gap - Privas

September 2nd, 183kms

They head out of the Alps and start heading west, and spend most of the day descending, in fact they descend for almost 160kms before the road starts to rise again all the way to the finish, with the last 10kms being all uphill.

This is an easy stage with a tough finish, it should be one for the sprinters, but maybe not all the sprinters will survive that drag for the last 10kms or so, that only really levels out with about 1200m to go. 

Stage 4 Review

Not much to report for the first 150kms, we got our break, but it was a poor break with none of the expected riders really in it. Israel gave it a good go though with two other of their men and not Hermans, with Neilands being the last man standing. 

No dramas in the peloton, with DQS driving it all day, but at a pretty constant and steady pace, with JV and Ineos happy to let them at it until they came inside the last 8kms. They didn't catch Neilands until 7kms to go, when the pace really started to up as they hit the steeper sections. 

With 6.5kms to go DQS came to the front with Devenyns doing a big pull in front of Alap, followed by Jungels, but it was full gas from all teams trying to position their men, ready for the big moves. The pace set by Jumbo was just infernal though, with Wout Van Aert first absolutely ripping up the road until about 3kms to go, and it was quite funny when he pulled off, Kwiatkowski was left at the front and the pace just totally died.. Sepp Kuss rolled past him and gave him a look like "Is that all you got buddy?" before taking up the pulling himself and stringing things out again.

He set such a blistering pace that no one could attack, until finally Guillaume Martin went with about 580m to go, when Kuss finally started to run out of gas and it started to bunch up a little again... He got a bit of a gap, but it was easily closed by Roglic who took over from Kuss with 500m to go. 

He stalled a little bit as they hit 350m to go, and some, like Bernal, who were really on the limit, were able to get back on the wheels. MAL came up the right side with 200m to go and looked to be making a move, but got pinched against the barriers and that was the end of that. 

Rogla kicked for home and it was like the Dauphiné all over again, no one had an answer. Tadej Pogacar went close for us, we'll take the place, but would have been nice to land that 14/1 winner. Alaphilippe tried to follow but just didn't have the sprint, and was actually passed in the end by Martin who kept going all the way to the line. Nairo Quintana with a very impressive 4th too ahead of Alaphilippe, he had said in the moring interviews that he didn't think he'd be finishing with the leaders today. 

Landa, Lopez, Pinot, Chaves, Dumoulin, Bernal, Yates, Bardet, Porte and Mollema weren't far off either, finising in the same time, Buchmann and Mas lost 9", Carapaz, Martinez and Higuita lost 28". 

It showed that J-V have come here to tear this race to pieces and to put Ineos in their place. Ineos had no answer today to their power and Bernal was all on his own as soon as things heated up. Ok, a sprint uphill at 35-40kmph is not really his forte, and he will get better as the race goes on, but they must be very worried in the Ineos camp right now, with Amador, Sivakov and the rest really struggling.

Rigo Uran now leads the EF team, he was 3rd favourite to be the top EF man, a long way to go, but it's not looking so great for the two younger Colombians at the moment. They do take the lead in the team classification though which is nice. 

Matchbets were a mixed bag, the first double and the treble landed to make us 3.9pts, Valverde beating Higuita was a surprise/disappointment, and Yates' underperformance in the last 200m was a disappointment too. Down about .75pts, not the end of the world, move on to tomorrow. 

The Route

They head out of the Alps from Gap and spend the first 100kms almost entirely going downhill as they head in a mostly south-west direction as far as Nyons. They pass through an intermediate sprint along the way after just 47.5kms, but it's likely the break will have taken the majority of the points on offer. 

After Nyons they go over a little uncategorised hill that goes on for 10kms, before they hit the Cat 4 Col de Serre Colon, which is just 4.1kms at 3.7%, barely a blip in the road. They are now heading north-west to the finish though and will be feeling a cross-headwind coming at them from the right. 

With 18kms to go the road starts to rise again, first taking them over the Cat 4 climb (2.7kms at 4.2%) before a descent that takes them to about 9kms to go. The road now starts to climb again and continues to climb all the way to 1.2kms before the finish in Privas. The last 5kms or so of climbing does go up in steps though, with some false flats and some steeper parts around 4-5%, but it's generally pretty steady. 

As they head towards 2kms to go though on the Route de Chomerac it does get pretty tough, and you can be sure that some teams will be looking to put the sprinters under sever pressure (see right).

As they approach Privas there is a section of the road which has a concrete divider down the middle of it that starts with 1500m or so to go, which could well split the peloton down two sides. This isn't such a big deal, as long as no one rides in to it, but the flamme rouge is basically on a large roundabout, and if you're caught on the left hand side you will have to go the long way around it, as they are turning right here to head up to the finish line. (below). 

With all the concerns about rider safety these days, it was quite worrying to see that the Tour, as far as I could make out, is taking the sprinters through a very narrow roundabout with just 250m left to go in the stage. Thinking about it, that's the distance from the line that Nizzolo launched his sprint on Monday, now the sprinters will have to fly around this roundabout below and try to kick again to the finish line. It sounds like utter madness to me that they couldn't find another spot in the town to finish the stage on.

Well, I've been informed tonight though that the organisers made them remove the roundabout, at the cost of €47,000, which is good to know, it's a straight-forward run to the line then after all! 

The final kilometre is a gentle uphill run to the line, with a little downhill section about 700-500m to go before it rises gently to the line again. Now that they have removed that roundabout, there are almost no obstacles inside the last kilometre, it's a very fast and pretty wide road which should set it up for a good sprint finish.  

Contenders and Favourites

So another sprint stage then is it? Probably. But the last 18kms should see some teams absolutely rip it to pieces in an attempt to try to dump the sprinters. First up there is the Cat 4 climb that averages 4.2% for almost 3kms. If that is ridden full gas, which I expect it to, as not only do some teams want to drop the sprinters, but GC teams will be looking to thin out the peloton and keep their leaders out of trouble. 

There's only about 3kms of a descent before they start on the upward run to Privas again, so there won't be much time to get back on and I think we will see the peloton in one long line, with some gaps to riders near the back that will only get bigger as soon as it starts climbing again. It's not the steepest of run-ins at all, but it's the combination of the gradient and the speed it will be ridden at that will rock the sprinters. 

As they approach the 1km to go marker, as I explained above in the Route review, you will need to make sure you go on the right hand side of the road divider, and up the right hand side of the roundabout, in order to not lose a load of ground going the long way around. Then it's the drag uphill again and on to the finishing straight.. Timing and positioning are going to be everything in this sprint. 

With the hill before the finish, you can almost be guaranteed that we will lose Niccolo Bonifazio, Andre Greipel and maybe Viviani and Kristoff. Caleb Ewan has flown up the Poggio with the best before, Bennett is hit and miss with hills, good one day, terrible the next.. This should be just about ok for him though.

The likes of Matteo Trentin, Daryl Impey, Giacomo Nizzolo, Bryan Coquard, Cees Bol, Edward Theuns and Luca Mezgec should really be looking forward to this sprint though, I would expect CCC, M-S, NTT, B&B, Sunweb and Trek all to be pulling hard inside the last 10kms in order to make it as hard as possible. 

At this moment in time, Ewan definitely looks the fastest sprinter in the peloton, his finishing speed on Monday was unbelieveable. He did take advantage of multiple slipstreams as he weaved his way through the pack, whereas the guys out front were in the wind for 200m+, but his speed was incredible. Bennett's kick was equally as impressive when he did go, he surged ahead of everyone else, and if Ewan hadn't collared him, he would have finished several bike lengths clear of Nizzolo. 

Nizzolo is clearly sprinting well, he looks to be the 3rd fastest sprinter here, and he will like this uphill sprint more than most, he won both the Italian champs and Euros on courses with uphill finishes. 

Prices have just come out and they make Caleb the 13/8 favourite, and it's hard to argue with that.. I thought he's be around 5/4 or evens actually. He has won several uphill sprint finishes in his career, although this isn't the hardest of uphill sprints, it's the uphill run to the line that might cause problems for some, but he should be ok. Lotto will rally around him and De Gendt, De Buyst and Kluge will make sure he's near the front hitting the last km. He can shadow again and wait to unleash his devastating kick. 

For Bennett to win it, they will need to string it out with a blistering pace coming inside the last 3-4kms, but also keep enough in reserve to get Sam through that roundabout with 1km to go and with at least two men with him for the last kilometre. Alaphilippe will probably take a strong pull on the hilly parts, along with Devenyns and Cavagna, but leave it up to Asgreen and Morkov for the final km.

If we get a straight-forward sprint, then it has to be between the two of them again.. and this time, I'm swinging to Ewan.. Bennett just seems to get something wrong sometimes, and that costs him wins. Ewan will be sitting and waiting to pounce again, and the only way DQS could possibly stop him would be to box him in on the barriers with Morkov outside him and Morkov starts sprinting behind Sam in order to keep Ewan hemmed in.. but that's unlikely and very risky. Ewan's finishing speed should get him there again. 

Of the others, then I think Nizzolo will have to go close again. He will like this finish more than the top two sprinters, and if he can get a good jump this time, maybe taking Bennett's wheel instead of Ewan, he might be able to challenge and keep Ewan far enough back to make it a bit more difficult for him. At 8/1, Nizzolo is an ok e/w price. 

Cees Bol wasn't good enough on Monday, but he likes a challenging finish and will be involved again in the finish for sure. Peter Sagan didn't sound too confident today about tomorrow, saying 'we'll see' when asked about his chances, and I'm not too confident in him either, he just looks lacklustre at the moment and is not fast enough to challenge the fast men.

Wout Van Aert, Bryan Coquard, Greg Van Avermaet and Sonny Colbrelli could get involved, if it's really flat out over the hills, Bahrain could work for Colbrelli and he could sprint, but he has been nowhere to be seen so far in the sprints, he's been closer to last than first, but he has been held up by crashes and been unlucky. This could finally be a chance for him to get involved and he is a decent price at 50/1 as a result of his anonymity, but the 11/1 on a place could be worth a small bet. 

It's hard to look past Bennett and Ewan of course, but I just have a feeling this could be a messy sprint and we might even lose some of the sprinters in the last 5kms. So I'm going to stay away from the top two, because as sure as I switch to Ewan from Bennett, Bennett is sure to win! Instead, I'm backing Nizzolo each-way and having a go at Colbrelli to finish in the top 3 at 11/1 with Unibet. 

Recommendations:

1pt e/w on Giacomo Nizzolo at 8/1 with Paddy Power/Betfair or 7/1 with Unibet

0.5pts on Colbrelli to finish in the top 3 at 11/1 with Unibet 

Matchbets

Trentin to beat Stuyven and Bol to beat Kristoff - 2pts at 5/4

Viviani to beat Bonifazio and Nizzolo to beat Sagan - 2pts at 5/4

Put the 4 in a fourfold - 1pt at 4.1/1, all with Bet365