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Published on Sunday, 05 July 2015 20:24

TDF Stage 3

Anvers to Huy 

Monday 6th May, 159.5kms 

We're only three stages in, but this could be a pivotal stage for the GC for two reasons. Firstly, because the narrow roads and street furniture on the roads of Belgium are going to be dangerous, just ask Dan Martin or Philippe Gilbert who both crashed out of the Fleche-Wallone this year. 

Secondly, the Mur de Huy at the end of the stage is going to be so hectic - there will be 100 guys trying to be in the first 20 as they charge towards the base of the climb and someone is going to have to miss out and will find themselves getting shuffled back. If you are caught more than 30 or 40 riders back you could lose 20-30" to some of your GC rivals by the top. For example, the likes of Kiserlovski, Kwiatkowski and Wellens finished 38" back on Valverde, despite being more or less part of the main pack. There will be gaps all over the field and the clock runs every time there is a gap. The likes of Quintana and Froome will have to be on their toes, they are not the most physical in the bunch and could be bullied out of it. 

The Fleche-Wallone is one of the most iconic finishes in cycling and I would think there will be fans camping out from Saturday to get a good vantage spot on the hill. It's normally insanely busy up there and a wall of noise, this could be ridiculously loud Monday! 

What an incredible stage we had on Sunday to Zeland - drama for almost 100kms as the wind whipped up, the rain lashed in, the echelons whipped and riders blew up all over the place. There were plenty crashes, lots of punctures and some massive time gaps as the race was blown apart. Big winners on the GC on the day were Froome, Van Garderen and Contador, medium losers were Nibali, Quintana, Rodriguez, Valverde, Dan Martin, Mollema and Pinot and big losers were Zubeldia, Kelderman, Kruiswijk, Ten Dam... A bad day all round for LottoNL with their three GC men losing over 5 minutes. 

As for the stage winner? Well, I could be accused of talking out of my pocket here, but what a dreadful finish by Etixx again in a race-winning situation. There really should not have been any dangers in that little group to Cavendish, but for some reason Etixx did a huge amount of the pulling in the closing stages, rather than letting say Tinkoff or BMC do it.

End result? Hitting 1km to go, Cav is too far back, Kwiat and Martin are pulling on the right hand side of the road, Renshaw has to do a huge pull to bring Cav from the back to the front. Renshaw then goes to the front too early and when he blows up Cav is left in the wind with nearly 300m to go. A perfect lead-out for Greipel and Sagan and Da Gorilla takes it. Cav saw his chances disappear, eased up and Cancellara stole 3rd place and the Yellow Jersey off the shoulders of Tony Martin. No wonder Martin was left 'Bittterly, bitterly disappointed' after the race, after all he does for Cav all year. 

At least a few of the match bets landed to save the day, Coquard had a shocker and lost both of those bets. Bennett was going well for a long time but when the final split came between the front group and Nibali's he was caught out too. I did some trading on my Quintana bet in play as I tweeted earlier, I laid out all my stake (and more) at 3.05 at the start of the day, fearing something might happen Quintana in the wind.. When he was dropped I backed it back at 4.9 and have laid out of it again now at 4.1! End result? I've effectively added about 2pts of free profit on him and will go back in again in a few days so will have averaged a much higher price on him, probably something like 5/1.

It was a good day for Sagan and the green jersey too as he took 30pts, far more than I expected him to do today. He's in to as short as 2/5 after just two stages, a great position to be in so early. Was a bad day for Feillu today too, after crashing a few days ago he seems to not be in great shape, he is now the Lanterne Rouge, 13'32" back, our H2H man Meintjes has over 7 minutes on him already. 
 

The Route

The route is pretty non-descript for 100kms as they head south-east away from Anvers and through the Brabant Flamand Province before they arrive in to the Namur Province and the Liege Province. As they do so the stage starts to get a little but more lumpy and more interesting. First up they face the first climb of the Tour so far with the 4th Cat Côte de Bohissau, a 2.5km 4th Cat climb at 5.5%.

It's a little up and down for the next 35kms or so where they pass the intermediate sprint at the 128km mark and then head down to the foot of the next categorised hill, the Côte d'Ereffe, another Cat 4 climb of 2.1kms at 5%, then on to the Côte de Cherave, a much steeper little hill that averages 8.1% over 1.3kms. As there are only 5.5kms left to go once over the top of the Cherave we are sure to see a number of attacks in an attempt to get a head start ahead of the Mur de Huy. There are 3 kilometres on the flat between Ahin and Huy before the mass charge in to the bottom of the climb.

The final climb is famous and well known to anyone who has watched Fleche-Wallone. 1.3km long at an average of 9.6%, but the first 300m or so only average 5% as they approach the climb on the wider roads. Then suddenly the road compacts down to only about the width of 5 or 6 riders abreast and starts to kick up with 800m left, rising at 13% average for the next 500m, hitting a max of 19% as they start to weave through the twisty part. Then as it straightens out a little towards the top and they head in to the last 300m or so it eases back a little to 10.3% average, but keeps going all the way to the line.  

Contenders and Favourites

Well you have to start with Alejandro Valverde don't you? Winner of F-W for the last two years running, as well as back in 2006, he is made for this finish. He has a great team to pull for him leading in to the bottom of the climb and he is great at getting himself in just the right position to attack away from the front of the field in the last 150-200 metres. In the F-W this year Valverde was perfectly positioned from about 500m to go, right at the front and controlling the pace, never looking uncomfortable even when Albasini started to wind it up on the left hand side of the road. 

And then he came in to his own with 250m to go, winding it up until he was in full sprint with 150m to go and gradually eased away from Alaphilippe and Albasini. I picked him as the winner of F-W and I think he will probably win again here. He was 10/3 for F-W but is only 2/1 now to win this (was 5/2 a little earlier in the week). I got 11/4 on Betfair tonight though and I'm happy with that. 

Daniel Martin has targeted this race ever since he crashed out on the run to the Mur de Huy in April. He said that he was in the form of his life in April and was really gutted when he crashed out. He has gone well on this climb in the past, as it's a climb that really suits his style. 6th in 2012, 4th in 2013 and 2nd in 2014, it was all set for him to move up again to 1st spot this year. I think he will be right at the front again here though and has a great chance of making amends. He has described it before as 'my favourite race of the year' too.. 

He has been showing signs of coming back in to form after his injuries (he had broken ribs in his crash) when he rode well on some of the mountain stages in the Dauphiné. In stage 6 he attacked away from the Froome group in pursuit of Nibali and Costa, who were up the road, and he managed to put 26" in to Froome at the finish. Then on stage 8 he looked to be going quite well, moved up on the right, then Froome went and he just couldn't go with him (nor could anyone else to be fair. He stayed on though and only lost 31" at the finish, and was only 3" behind Bardet and Rodriguez. This is much more like his kind of finish though, a short, sharp climb with a sprint to the line. He was 9/1 and I dithered, then he was cut to 15/2 so I took some of that each-way and he's now 7/1, which is bordering on being a little short, but still worth an e/w bet I think, he's 6/1 with 365 and Coral.

A rider that surprised me in F-W in April was Michael Albasini, who battled his way to a fantastic 3rd place, but looking back at his results, it wasn't really a surprise at all. In previous years he has finished 11th, 10th, 7th twice, 6th and 2nd, a fantastic set of results on this climb, showing how much it suits him. He's going well too with two stage wins in the Tour de Romandie and two top tens at the end of the Tour de Suisse. He was 25/1 with PP on Saturday night so I took that. There is 20/1 available on him still, you might get bigger on Betfair as he's 'unfashionable', he's as short as 14s with Corals.

Joaquim Rodriguez is the second favourite for the stage at 4/1. Purito won F-W of course in 2012, beating Albasini, and has finished 4th this year, just behind Albasini, held up by a crash in 2014, 6th in 2013, 2nd to Gilbert in 2011 and 2nd to Evans in 2010. That's a pretty fantastic set of results to be fair and you'd think he has to be involved at the finish again Monday. I feel though that he has lost his zip and is just not the Rodriguez of old - yes, he's had some good results this year, but he, like all the rest suffered a lot today - in fact he suffered more than most, crashing twice - "I've hit my elbow, hip and knee, which right now is what worries me". I'm going very much against him tomorrow. 

Simon Yates was way too short in the betting for me at just 16/1 on Saturday, he's a lot bigger now with 365, 40/1. I think it may be that Yates and Gerrans will be working for Albasini and may shelve personal ambitions. He will get the favour returned on other stages when Alba will pull for him. Julian Arrendondo is only 22/1 and he has only ridden the climb once and finished in 11th place, not a bad result for your first attempt. I think though that he is a 5th to 10th place kind of guy again, it will be interesting to see how he rides it - Bauke Mollem has gone well on here in the past and Arredondo has said that he is here to look after Mollema for the GC - although Mollema's GC hopes were struck a blow today.

Indeed though, Bauke Mollema has finished 4th ('13), 9th ('12) and 7th ('11) on this climb and will be looking for a big result here to try to move back up the GC after disappointment today - he could potentially take 30" or more back on some. He really got motoring in the TT late on on Saturday, but as he said himself after, 'it was too short for me!' He was 67th at the halfway point and 14th at the finish, he did the second half the 5th fastest, so he's clearly in very good condition. He could surprise a few at a big price here. 

Michal Kwiatkowski said before the TT that he wasn't sure that he was fully fit yet and he was right, he's not, he did an awful TT, I'm not touching him for this at just 25/1. He did a lot of work for Martin/Cavendish today and I think he may struggle. Cav did say in his post-race interview though that he thinks he has a chance tomorrow, I don't..

I don't think any of the other GC men will be fighting out the finish, I think they will look after themselves and be happy to roll in 5 or 10" behind the winner - Quintana will be desperate to make back time, as will Nibali, but I think they will just make sure they stay out of trouble and save themselves for stage 10 and onwards. They need to watch out for traffic and big splits though, if they get really caught out down the pack they could lose 30" + which would be a bad waste of more time. 

Others that could go well? Watch out for the likes of Dani Moreno (5th in FW this year, winner of it in 2013), Alexis Vuillermoz (6th this year), Tim Wellens for a late attack like in F-W, Van Avermaet for a late attack, Kreuziger and Poels. 

Verdict: I think this finish will go the way of the form guys on this climb, I can't see it being a break winning it either. I think Valverde will be very hard to beat, but I like the look of Martin, Albasini and Mollema as interesting runners to fill a podium spot, possibly even win it. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on Alejandro Valverde at 11/4  on Betfair 

0.75pts e/w on Dan Martin at 15/2 with PP, take the 7/1 now

0.5pts e/w on Bauke Mollema with Boyles at 33/1 as they are paying 4 places, take the 40/1 with others if you don't have a Boyles account (or click here to open one now) 

0.5pts e/w on Michael Albasini at 25/1 with PP

Also looking to take on Rodriguez whatever way I can elsewhere.. 

Matchbets:

Valverde to beat Rodriguez - 10pts at 2/5 with Bet365

Mollema to beat Kelderman - 2pts at 8/11 with Bet365

Kelderman to beat Costa - 1.5pts at 4/6 with PP

Vuillermoz to beat Caruso - 1.5pts at 8/11 with PP