Details

Published on Friday, 14 July 2017 21:12

TDF 2017 Stage 14

Blagnac to Rodez

Sat 15th July, 181kms 

Quite possibly the most boring out of quite a few boring looking stages in this year's TDF, a non-descript stage across non-descript farmlands, with a few lumps and bumps along the way. 

Ok,I'm being a bit unfair to the beautiful countryside of the Aveyron as they head in to the Auvergne, but as regards action and providing some exciting Saturday TV action, this doesn't seem to fit the bill. Maybe they are hoping the grippy roads and constant undulations of the area will see some action at the front and splits unexpectedly happen, but it looks like it will be a boring stage with 5 minutes of excitement at the finish with the uphill sprint. 

We did see a great finish to the stage in 2015 though when Greg Van Avermaet outsprinted Peter Sagan on the uphill finish, landing the bet for us at 20/1 each-way! It was a very exciting last kilometer as you can see below, with the remains of the break of the day De Gendt, Voeckler and Kelderman swept up in the shadow of the finish line with just 300m to go, and Greg Van Avermaet and Peter Sagan pulling away from Bakelants and the GC men who came home 7" after them. 

Sagan looked nailed on to be the winner when he sat in GVA's slipstream with 100m to go, but GVA just ground a massive gear to the line and Sagan couldn't come around him. 

Stage 13 Review

An incredible day of racing saw Warren Barguil do what I said he'd dearly love to do, and won on Bastille Day while wearing the Polka Dots. It was a superb win for him having suffered the agony of defeat in Chambery on Sunday. The stage was almost everything we expected of it and more. Who would have foreseen Alberto Contador and Nairo Quintana going up the road in a breakaway with Mikel Landa?? Well, maybe we could expect it out of Contador, but he's been crocked up until now, and what about Quintana?? He suddenly finds the energy to go up the road too.

Sky were superb in shaking things up, but at one point, it was looking like it might take a strange turn of events when Mikel Landa was approaching Virtual Maillot Jaune out on the road. Landa, who had been 180s on Betfair last night was suddenly trading in to 15s, 14s, 10s, and went as low as 8.6 (where I layed out some of the 180s I took last night in a cheeky little bet).. Dan Martin rode a very strange race, hammering it up the Peguere, putting them all under pressure, only to be dropped when Chris Froome put in a burst near the top of the climb. He got back on the descent, went over the top and attacked himself a little later, and was looking good for a while to land the MB double.

But of all the fucking riders to come after him, Simon Yates chased him down and then beat an exhausted Martin in the sprint. Incredibly frustrating to lose the H2H in that manner. Martin did pull back 9" to move him to 1'32" behind Aru on the GC. At least Pauwels beat Benoot to pull something back, but other than that it was a shitty day as not one of our riders were involved in the finish. Vuillermoz was our best shot, he was with the Quintana breakaway, but he was dropped on the climb of the Agnes.  

Froome looked to be struggling at times on the climbs, especially on the steep parts of the Peguere, as expected, but no-one attacked him.. no-one... the only guy who was probably capable of attacking him was Martin, but for some inexplicable reason he rode at the front for about 3kms on the steepest, hardest part of the Peguere, so was cooked when Froome finally said, ok, if none of you are going to attack, I will.. Yet he still had the energy to go off the front solo in the last 6kms. He is in amazing shape, even more amazing considering the crash he suffered, he could yet play a part in the Alps next week. 

Aru coped well enough, Bardet tried a few digs and Yates and Meintjes impressed too, but Meintjes should never let Yates go in a situation like that, he just gave easy time away to him. In the end though, there was only ever going to be one winner in a sprint involving Quintana, Contador and Landa, Barguil got his revenge for Sunday, and in the process may well have wrapped up the KOM, as he now has a 57pt lead. Almost time to trade out if you took some of that 1.8 I recommended a few nights ago. 

The Route

They start in Blagnac, near Toulouse and head north-east for almost the whole day, with the road starting to gently rise upwards as they approach the outer reaches of the Massif Central. The first 80kms are flat, with only the intermediate sprint at Rabastens after 55kms to break the monotony, but that may well be just a roll-through for the break. 

The carry on heading north-east, and after 80kms the road starts to rise, and over the next 90kms the road rises and drops in a series of small hills and bumps, including two Cat 3 climbs that aren't even worth a mention. What is worth a mention though, and may be overlooked by many is that little kick up from the 166.5km mark in the profile below. It doesn't look like much, but that hill averages over 6% for nearly 3kms, and it tops out with just about 13kms to go. It will be hard for teams to try to keep it under control and we should see a number of attackers try to get away here, and it could possibly see a number of riders go out the back door too after the hard last two stages they have had. It may even turn the stage in to a GC battle, as some try to get away to steal some time.

The last 8kms are downhill, before a last little kick-up to the line for the final 500m, but it does ease off slightly in the last 100m to almost flat, meaning that if a few riders come to the finish together they might end up a sprint for the line. 

Contenders and Favourites

This is going to be interesting finish to this stage, I was looking forward to seeing part two of Van Avermaet Vs Sagan clash of two years ago, but of course that isn't going to happen with Sagan out of the race. Does that mean that it should be easy for Greg Van Avermaet then? Not at all, there has been nothing easy in this race, except perhaps for Marcel Kittel.. 

The first 80kms of this stage are flat and boring, and it might be hard for the break to go, it could take a while.. I say that, but then again, lots of breaks have gone inside the first kilometre of stages also. But the last 100kms are lumpy and difficult terrain. The area around Rodez has lots of small little punchy hills that are uncategorised but can be up to 10-15% in parts and can be really energy-sapping. 

Of course they have made Greg Van Avermaet favourite for the stage given how well he fared here last time, he managed to crush the master of finishes like this Peter Sagan with a second kick in the last 50m that meant Sagan never got a chance to come around him. And of course, Van Avermaet has just got better and better since then, with many fine victories under his belt, including the Olympics road race and the stage to Le Lioran in the Tour last year.

He has hidden away for most of this race, and you can understand why, it has not been a route to favour his sort of rider at all really. Flat sprints are not his thing and these have been interspersed by mountain stages, so he hasn't yet had a chance to shine, except of course on the uphill finish in Longwy on stage 3 when he finished 4th behind Sagan, Matthews and Martin, so the legs aren't too bad. He also stretched his legs on stage 5 I think it was in one of the failed breaks before the final break went away, and rode really well today to stay with the GC group for as long as he did and finish in 28th place, but other than that we've barely seen him. I think his whole Tour revolves around this stage and even more so now for BMC with the elimination of Porte. He's short at 7/2 but he has to have a big chance again. 

This is a real specialists finish though, I don't think many of the sprinter types will be involved at all, with just a couple of exceptions. The first is John Degenkolb, which might sound a surprising choice, but he did finish 4th here in 2015, leading home the second wave of riders that came to the line 7" behind GVA. We also saw him pull off a strong uphill sprint on the Hatta Dam in the Dubai Tour a few years back, he's good at these short, intensive efforts, despite his size and bulk. He hasn't quite been himself though in the last year and a half since the crash, and it's been taking him a while to get warmed up in this race, but the form seems to be coming. 13th, 10th, 5th and 2nd is showing good progression, but then he was way down in 82nd place in the last sprint in Pau. He's 22/1 and that's worth a small interest I think. 

We might also see Michael Matthews get involved, he was close on the uphill finish in Longwy and he finished 17th in this stage two years ago, part of the first group that came in, led by Degenkolb. He has been real hit and miss in this Tour, he was as disconsolate as we were on stage 10 to Bergerac, as the team had done all the good work, only for him to fuck it up in the last 500m getting out of position and giving himself too much to do. He should hopefully be in a better position coming in to this one, Simon Geschke, Curvers, Arndt and Sinkledam should help guide him in to a good position starting the final hill and he could mark the leaders until it flattens out a little in the final. But the way he has been riding he's way too short at 9/2 for me, I can't trust him.

Quickstep have a number of cards they can play on this stage again, they could start with Zdenek Stybar attacking out on the road on rolling hills like this, he'll like the profile of the last 30kms. Then we could see the likes of Gianluca Brambilla or Philippe Gilbert attacking on that drag coming out of Bonnecombe with 15kms to go, or Gilbert could also wait for the finish and try to beat Matthews, GVA etc in the uphill sprint. And Dan Martin wouldn't be without a chance on this tough finish, he was competing with Sagan and Matthews on the finish in Longwy, and despite his injuries he rode brilliantly again today. Ordinarily I'd be all over the 25/1, and I'd have bitten PP's arm off for the 80/1 they opened at, but missed it while I dallied, but I'm just a little worried about he tweeting how he is struggling to sprint out of the saddle and that he rode hard today as he can't follow fast accelerations, so just kept the pace as high as he could for as long as he could. As this will be an out-of-the-saddle sprint he may find it hard. 

Sonny Colbrelli is 4th fav with Bet365, but that's too short for me, he's been pretty disappointing this race, can't see him outsprinting these guys tomorrow. Edvald Boasson Hagen is going well in this race and almost won two sprints against Kittel incredibly. He's not exactly the lightest guy in the world, but he's incredibly powerful over short bursts and could drag himself into contention in this one too, aided by the likes of RJVR or Eisel. 

Alberto Bettiol was prominent in the front group for a while today but faded out of it, he did well in Longwy to take 5th, but he's been struggling ever since and I'm not sure he'll have the legs for this after the last two days. Michael Albasini could get involved but I haven't been impressed all that much so far in this race, he's tried a few breaks but none of them stuck and hasn't any decent results to his name so far. 38th is his best result and he was way down in 51st in Longwy. 

Two outsides I'd like to have a few pennies on though are Jan Bakelants and Tim Wellens. Both of them could attack on the hill with 15kms to go, it looks perfect for a Wellens attack, and he could also do well on that finish. And Bakelants? Well he finished 3rd here last time up, trying to go with Sagan and Van Avermaet, just getting out done for speed in the end. He has been active and on the attack in this race but this could be a big target for him too. 

And actually, if you look at the top 10 from the last time up here, it is clear that this hill can become a GC men's battle, with Froome, Nibali, Contador, Valverde and Van Garderen filling places 6-10. We could well see Bardet, Aru, Martin and Uran fighting it out for the minor, or possibly even the major honours, Froome, Landa and Kwiatkowski are sure to be there or thereabouts also, but it will be interesting to see if the others can take another few seconds off of Froome. Rigo Uran has done well on uphill finishes in places like Quebec in the past, he looks very big at 125/1 with PP. 

And there are lots of guys behind of course who could either get involved, either from the break of the day, that might stick, or from a late attack in the last 15kms or just comes out of nowhere in the sprint up the hill and surprise everyone like Bakelants did two years ago. Diego Ulissi, Fabio Felline, Primoz Roglic, Daryl Impey etc. 

But I think this is GVA's to lose, he was just dominant up here last time up and it looks like he has just been in training up until now and stretched his legs today to see how they'd respond. He was right up there with the GC climbers, right until it got really steep on the Peguere when Dan Martin put on the turbo boost, that was pretty impressive. Degenkolb at 22/1, Bakelants at 40/1, Wellens at 33/1 and Uran at 125/1 will hopefully give us some excitement at the finish and get us back on track.  

Recommendations:

2pts win on Greg Van Avermaet at 4.1/1 on Betfair

0.3pts win on Rigo Uran at 125/1 with PP

0.3pts each-way on John Degekolb at 22/1 with PP

0.3pts each-way on Jan Bakelants at 40/1 with various

0.3pts each-way on Tim Wellens at 33/1 with Bet365

Matchbets

Degenkolb to beat EBH - 2pts at 19/20 with WH

Van Avermaet to beat Gilbert, Matthews to beat Colbrelli - 3pts at 4/5 with WH