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Published on Tuesday, 07 July 2015 21:54

TDF Stage 5

Arras to Amiens Métropole

Wed. 13th May, 189.5kms 

The first stage proper in France see them head south-west from Arras through the Pas de Calais region and on through the battlefields of the Somme on a day that we should see a battle among the sprinters. The area has lots of wide open fields though and with multiple changes of direction in the last 100kms, we could see echelons and splits again.

Incredible stage today, which thankfully saw all of the key GC men arrive safe and sound at the finish. I say all, but Thibaut Pinot threw the toys out of the pram big style when he had a mechanical and refused to take Ladagnous’ bike as it was a few centimetres too big for him.. He lost over 3 minutes.. On the other hand, Tony Martin took Matteo Trentin’s bike after a puncture, and even though Trentin is 6cm smaller than Martin he time trialled to victory on it. German experience and efficiency versus French petulence and inexperience.

It was a sensational win for Martin and just reward after three days of disappointment of coming so close to taking the yellow. But annoyingly he denied us our first decent winner of the Tour as Degenkolb did the business in winning the sprint behind, but we’ll have to settle for the each-way on that. Thankfully I took the four places bet on Van Avermaet also with Betfred at 10/1, he too did the business to take fourth place, it could have been a perfect 1-3 and double payout. Still it’s good to get back on track with the main bets, was pretty spot on with the analysis. Sagan did brilliant to take second again and thus added more green jersey points, unfortunately Greipel and Elmiger left the side down for their match bets, Stybar won his. Cav managed to stay in with the leaders all the way to the finish, but struggled on the uphill finish (he also had Martin up the road of course taking victory.

But what about the GC men? Froome was excellent, ably shepherded by Nico Roche and Geraint Thomas, even attacking inside the last 10kms. Contador hung in there, thanks to continuous great work from Sagan, Nibali was aggressive but couldn’t really get anywhere, Nairo Quintana was sensational though – when it looked like the little man was going to be in trouble and was going out the back door as a result of others losing wheels, he kicked on past them with a strength and dexterity over the cobbles that few expected. He looks super strong and I can’t wait to see him in the mountains. Tejay was brilliant today too, stayed out of trouble, Van Avermaet and the rest of the team were superb in looking after him.

Betting moves after today? Sagan is now in to 1/2 for the Green jersey, Greipel is 4/1 and Deggers is in to 8/1 after today’s 2^nd. Chris Froome has shortened up even more, is in to 5/6 and as short as 8/11 for the GC. Nairo is solid at 11/4, same price he started at more or less. Nibali has drifted in price, I guess as many expected him to take a sizeable advantage out of his rivals like last year, which of course didn’t happen, and Contador is also on the drift. Tejay has finally started to shorten, in to 30s on Betfair and 25/1 with the bookies.

The Route

After leaving Arras they first head north-west on a dead-straight (must be Roman) road before heading north-east past the National Necropolis of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, then turn and head south-east past the Canadian war Memorial at Vimy, a memorial dedicated to Canadian military personnel killed during World War I. It took 11 years to build and is the centre-piece of a 100-hectare memorial park. 

They carry on in a south-east direction through some very exposed, wide open roads and they will have a pretty strong head/cross-wind coming at them from the south-west so we could see some teams look to split it here again like EQS, Astana or T-S. After the intermediate sprint at Rancourt after 90kms they turn right and in to the head-wind just after Peronne and about 8kms later they turn north so it is now a tail/cross-wind coming at them from their right. Another change of direction at Combles after 120kms sees them hit with a cross/head-wind for about 20kms as they pass by the South-African National Memorialof Bois Delville and the Franco-British Memorial of Thiepva. 

They then have a 30km stretch which could be the last chance for the teams looking to split it up as they have nearly 30kms heading south with a head/cross-wind coming from their right. With 20kms to go as they pass the Australian National Memorial they now are heading due east, straight in to a head-wind, so it'll be very hard for any stragglers to try to pull back a powerful lead group if they have snapped the elastic and caused splits.

Between 6km and 4km to go they have to go through 3 large roundabouts, but the rest of the route is pretty straightforward on good roads. The road rises a little from around 1500m to go and then there's a slight right hand bend with 480m to go but then it's straight, and slightly downhill to the line where we should see a very fast sprint. 

Contenders and Favourites

This is going to be an interesting stage as there will probably be many who will be suffering badly after a pretty chaotic and brutal opening few stages. The cross-winds and chaos of stage 2, the crashes and splits of stage 3, the frantic action over the cobbles on stage 4. I would think plenty will be looking for a nice easy day here with a bit of action for the last 20kms to set up a sprint and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a bit of a truce called. 

But the Tour is the Tour, and if the opportunity presents itself, there are sure to be those who will want to pile more pain on and look to blow things up in that strong cross-winds. As the road zig-zags up and down it could be a very tiring day and we could see the final splits come in that last 50kms as they head south in to the cross/head-wind. If you get dropped here, it will be almost impossible to get back on to a charging peloton with just 20kms to go when they head in to the block head-wind. 

Teams should have learned their lesson by now though with the winds and I'd expect a lot more of the sprinters teams to be on their guard today. Having said that though, there are bound to be some caught in the wrong place and at the wrong end of a split when someone lets a wheel go. Whether there are any GC contenders caught at the wrong side of a split we'll have to see, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the likes of Pinot, Bardet or Valverde caught out again.

André Greipel easily disposed of Cavendish on Sunday after a total balls-up in the sprint by Etixx. I am blaming the team as a whole because they all need to shoulder responsibility for the mess they made out of it. They did too much work unneccessarily in the final 30kms as far a I'm concerned, they should have left the GC teams get on with it. A team that had five riders in the leading group, but three of whom pulled on the right hand side of the road in the last kilometre, with Cav too far back on the left hand side; Renshaw doing a big pull to get Cav up to the front on his own and then dying instead of trying to get the help of the guys on the right; Renshaw pulling off with 400m to go and Cav having to start his sprint way earlier than normal...

Oh and Cav seemed to have no power left at the finish, although it didn't help that he had to start his sprint so far back. Greipel's team did a lot of work too but the difference was he was in a good position coming in to the last 400m, with Marcel Sieberg half leading him out, half protecting him from the wind coming from his right and he sitting on Cav's wheel. It was 1-0 to the Lotto boys on the day.

However, we then went in to stage 4 today and Cavendish was excellent - he pulled at the front like a boss for a while, he stayed with the main contenders right to the sprint finish, but either because the uphill pull was too hard for him, or he was just trying to block for Tony, he didn't do a great sprint. He might be tired after today, but then again, so will everyone else be. Confidence will be very high in the camp again as they have won the stage and aToned for the cock-up with Martin's yellow jersey on st2. They will be buzzing tomorrow after that win and I think there is no way they will make the same mistake in the leadout tomorrow, Cav has to be the strong favorite to land the stage.

André Greipel sprinted well as I said on 2 to take the victory, but today he really suffered out there and was blown out long before the finish. He was wrecked at the finish and not only that, his leadout train has been derailed. Adam Hansen and Greg Henderson are injured and won't be able to do much, Debuscherre is his new leadout man and he has never done it before (and he crashed a few days ago too). As strong as he looked Tuesday, I'm put off him for tomorrow. 

We were denied the opportunity of course to see Kristoff, Bouhanni, Degenkolb and the rest sprint on stage 2, only Sagan and Cancellara got involved, and again on stage 4 today, we didn't really see Bouhanni sprint.. So it's hard to say for certain what sort of sprinting form they might be in. Bouhanni and Degenkolb did sprint for bonus seconds on stage 3, Degenkolb looked strong, Bouhanni too but weakened before the line. Degenkolb 'Won' today, but it was only for second.

Still, it shows that Nacer Bouhanni's not too badly beaten up and he is testing himself out - he did extremely well to even be with that group at the finish, Cofidis rode a fine race. With another night of healing and good racing in his legs, BouBou could come close on a fast sprint like this. He just needs to make sure that he isn't left behind if any splits happen. He opened at 14/1 I think but that didn't last long and he is now best price 11/1 with Corals, and that's worth an each-way punt.

Alexander Kristoff had another disaster on the cobbles of northern France today, puncturing at a bad time and never got back on. I'm going to wait for a more suitable stage to have a go at him, although if it does become very wet and windy, he could be a big danger.

Peter Sagan rode very well on stage 2 to look after Contador primarily and then sprint to second place on the stage, only beaten by millimetres. Maybe Contador might have been happier if he'd have stayed with him as he lost time to Froome at the finish, but in the grand scheme of things it probably won't matter much. He also rode well on stage 3 to the Huy, was pretty prominent until about half way up the climb until the gradient took its toll and he fell back. He could also have been saving something for today's stage though, as we saw, he was excellent today, looking after Contador all day, pulling back splits and then even getting up to sprint for '2nd' place on the sprint again. This flat downhill sprint mightn't be exactly to his liking though.

John Degenkob did sprint for points on stage 3 against Greipel, which shows he has ambitions on the Green, but also I think it was an opportunity to test his legs in a sprint, knowing he was not going to be anywhere near the front on the Mur. He couldn't touch Greipel though who comfortably held him a bike length back, with Bouhanni behind. But then today, he showed that in an uphill sprint, there are few that will beat him. This isn't uphill though and he might have to settle for 5th to 10th.

Sam Bennett narrowly avoided the crash on Monday by the skin of his teeth, but still hasn't had a chance to get stuck in to a sprint. I'm sure if it all goes smoothly for him tomorrow, Bora-Argon will want to get involved in the sprint for once and he could have a chance of getting invovled in the sprint. The sprint he won in Qatar was slightly downhill after all. 

Arnaud Démare has been anonymous too so far in this race, 81st in the TT, 43rd in Stage 2, caught in the Nibali group, 150th on stage 3 some 11 minutes back and on stage 4 over the cobbles just today he was nowhere to be seen again. FDJ were left a little shocked by the crash of William Bonnet and it could be that it sparks them in to life to try to get a win to dedicate to him, something you often see riders try to do in a close team like FDJ. He was showing signs of coming to form in the Belgium Tour, with two wins and a 2nd out of the three sprints he contested, albeit against lesser sprinters, In the Tour de Suisse stage 7 he sprinted to 5th, beaten by the likes of Van Avermaet, Cimolai and Sagan. He could possibly feature today at a big price. Also FDJ had a shocker today with Pinot arguing with everyone around him and they could do with a shot in the arm to lift the spirits in the team.

Bryan Coquard has also done nothing so far and even his form pre-tour suggests that he isn't riding anywhere near his best at the moment. Best left alone for now I think. 

Overall though, I think this should be a far more straightforward stage, hopefully the cross-winds don't cause too many problems - but if they do, you would think that Etixx will be heavily involved and possibly the ones doing the splitting. They will be in great spirits tomorrow and after ticking one box with getting Tony the Yellow Jersey, they will now be going after a stage win for Cav. Bouhanni and Démare could surprise, Démare has had a (relatively) easy few days, Bouhanni looked strong today. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on Mark Cavendish at 13/8 with Betfred

0.5pts each-way on Nacer Bouhanni at 11/1 with Coral

0.3pts each-way on Arnaud Démare at 33/1 with Bet365 

Couldn't resist it, had to be on in case on a wet and windy day - Sam Bennett - 0.5pts each-way at 40/1 with WillHill. 

Matchbets

Bennett to beat Coquard - going in again - 2.5pts at 6/5 with Will Hill

Bouhanni to beat Degenkolb - 1.5pts at 11/10 with Will Hill