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Published on Monday, 09 July 2018 21:04

TDF 2018 Stage 4

La Baule / Sarzeau

Tues 10th July, 195kms 

A trip to Sarzeau for the very first time in the TDF history? Why? Well monsieur Lappartient, the president of the UCI is the mayor of the town! And a more boring, and predictable sort of stage he couldn't have asked for. 

Not a lot to say about this one, a loop course that takes them away from the coast and back again, but it definitely isn't pan-flat. There are lots of little lumps and bumps along the way, but it does flatten out a bit for the last 20kms. There is a slightly smaller chance of a break making it today with the lumpy course and it being after a lot of the GC teams will have left a lot on the road in the TT, but it's only about a 5% chance I think.  

Stage 3 Review

So a significant day on the GC front, with BMC blitzing the course and blowing our Sky bets apart. I suppose the writing was on the wall early on when Sky were 1" down on Mitchelton Scott at the first intermediate, you'd have expected them to be doing better than that to win this TT, given that MS had several injured riders. They set the fastest time, but out on the course, BMC were already beating their splits. 

Sunweb looked like they would be the only team that might beat them, but they performed about as expected to finish 5th, but MS did surprisingly well to take 4th. QSF almost upset the top two with a cracking ride to slot in to 3rd, showing again just how powerful their team is.

Sky losing screwed up a lot of our bets, but at least Cannondale put in a great performance to beat Astana as I expected, and my 'Secret Pro' tip this morning landed at a nice 11/8 as Katusha beat LottoNL (possibly thanks to a mechanical for Roglic, details are sketchy on that at the moment). 

I think Dumoulin and Uran will be very happy with their position as of the end of stage 3, Dumoulin now has a 40" head start on Porte and 44" start on Froome, 57" on Nibali etc. Uran will also be very pleased with that TT, he has 20" on Froome, probably over a minute better off than he thought he might be at this stage. Geraint Thomas is sitting pretty at the top of the 'GC' leaderboard though, 8" ahead of Dumoulin, and we could see him take the yellow jersey at some point over the next week. 

Greg Van Avermaet meanwhile becomes the 3rd rider to take the yellow, which he will almost certainly lose next Tuesday, the question is, will there have been another wearer of it in the meantime after Bretagne or Roubaix? Julian Alaphilippe looks a likely candidate with that finish in Quimper and the Mur de Bretagne to come.. I think we could be looking pretty good for that over 5.5 wearers bet already. 

With the leaders being so close together though, those new B Bonus points might suddenly become a lot more competitive over the coming days, those 3" could be the difference between someone taking the yellow or not. Tomorrow's B sprint comes with 40kms to go, there's a fair chance that the break might be reeled in before then to give Thomas or Gilbert a crack at winning it and maybe taking yellow in the coming days.. 

The Route

A horse-shoe shaped route that heads east from La Baule and travels inland for about 90kms before turning north and then west to head back to the coast again at Sarzeau. It looks pretty flat on the profile, but as this is Brittany, the route is littered with little hills. There is just one categorised climb, a little Cat 4 bump after 135kms, and that's only 700m at 7.6%. The road continues to roll along through the hills, and passes through the Bonus sprint point with 39kms to go, so the break might have been reeled in on time for someone to go for the 3 bonus seconds. 

The last 97kms take them back in a westerly direction to the coast and there could well be a strong headwind against them all the way to the line, making it a very hard finish for a break to stay away. Shortly after the Bonus sprint there's a little uncategorised climb with 30kms or so to go, then it's over the rolling hills back to Sarzeau. There's a tight roundabout with 4kms to go, but after that it's dead straight more or less for the last 4kms. The final 2kms sees the road rise up slightly, at a gradient of around 1.3%.. not a lot, but it might just suit some more than others. 

The Contenders:

Another sprint, more chaos and crashes? Quick-Step Floors were going great again on Sunday right before Gaviria got caught up in the crash with 2kms to go. A testament to this was the fact that Gilbert,  Alap and Jungels were in the first group that got through to fight out the finish, he still had three very strong lead-out men in front of him with less than 2kms to go. 

Would Fernando Gaviria have beaten Sagan and Colbrelli? Yes, probably.. He would have still had someone like Jungels or Alap for a final leadout with 300m to go and he is good at slightly uphill sprints, he would have launched with Sagan behind him and Sagan might not have got past again. Sagan faded towards the end a little when Colbrelli came at him really fast, he almost won.

From 4kms to go after the last roundabout, this finish is very straight and QSF should just dominate it again, I can see him still having 3 or 4 again in front coming through that roundabout, they will probably put Jungels on the front before that to put down the big watts as they will want to be first through it in case there are any more crashes.

And if so, with a peloton strung out and riders scrapping for wheels behind, they will make it very difficult for another team to come with a train, we've already seen how bad LottoNL, Lotto Soudal and UAE have been in leading out their men. 13/8 is a bit short, but he's sure to have the best shot at winning this with that team in front of him. 

Peter Sagan could well be his biggest challenger again then, he was just so so powerful again on Sunday, and he always seems to find a way to get in the right position at the right time. Bora are also looking like the only team who are able to serve up the same sort of watts and leadout as QSF, their mighty strong rouleurs are always near the front in the last 10kms.

If he can get on Gaviria's wheel, and possibly waits until the very last minute, he could pounce if Gaviria has panicked and gone a little too soon. He should be very close to a top 3 again, but the 8/1 value he was on stage 1 is no longer there, and 10/3 is just a little too short for me to go e/w, I'd have a go at a bet to nothing if he was 4s or bigger.  

Where is Dylan Groenewegen? His team have been awful, nowhere to be seen when it matters most, but that might be because he has been saying he doesn't have the legs at the moment. That is very hard to believe and take as he came in here favourite to win the first stage and what we thought was a good shout for the Green, but instead he was 6th in the first sprint and nowhere in the 2nd. He might have been delayed by the crash in stage 2, but really, if he was in the form to be winning, he should have been up there with Sagan, Colbrelli and Kristoff, not way down the pack. 

Sonny Colbrelli came very close to landing the stage on Sunday, he was really flying in the last 100m, shooting past Démare and almost catching Sagan on the line, another 20m and he'd have beaten him probably. He had said in a tweet the night before that he was feeling good and wanted to go for victory yesterday, he had been looking after Nibali on the chaotic opening stage.

If he can get on Sagan or Gaviria's wheel again, with that slightly uphill finish, he might go close again, but he's a lot shorter tomorrow than the 66/1 or whatever he was on Sunday.. But guess what.. the gradient of the finish he won on in the Tour de Suisse, when he had Gaviria and Sagan behind him was... 1.3%.. exactly the same as here.. So with that in mind, and seeing how fast he finished Sunday, I think we have to have a go at 25/1 or bigger. 

Arnaud Démare was unlucky Sunday, how much did the chase back after his puncture take out of his legs for the sprint? He did seem to tire in the last 100m and he fell well back from the two leaders by the time they crossed the line. With a bit more luck, he should be up there challenging again, he has the speed, he just needs to not waste some of it in unneccessary chases.. FDJ might be able to get some men in to a leadout for him too, he could be a lively outsider for podium too, but 13/2 is a bit short considering how he faded at the end on Sunday.

John Degenkolb is apparently feeling really good, but I've been told he and Stuyven are getting the green light to go for it on Stage 9 to Roubaix. He hasn't shown me so far that he's feeling as good as his team-mate has proclaimed him to be, but he is 66/1 and that's very big.. 

What about Marcel Kittel at 15/4? Maybe he could be our 'bet to nothing' as I was pretty confident on Sunday that he would be in the top 3, but a puncture denied us that opportunity to see if he could improve on his 3rd place from stage 1. It was interesting though I thought how quickly he threw in the towel on stage 2, he didn't even try to make an effort to get back in, could it be that the legs weren't feeling great? Maybe we'll watch and see how he goes tomorrow rather than taking a chance again at just 15/4.

Alexander Kristoff has been 4th and 5th in the two sprints so far, suggesting he could get in the mix, he generally gets better as the race goes on. But he should really have done better on stage 2, he was nowhere near the top 3 once the sprint started. Also, he worked his ass off today for Martin in the TTT, he could be tired after that effort. 

And that's about it really. Mark Cavendish has been miles off the pace so far, can't see that changing tomorrow, and the rest like Dupont, Laporte and Boasson Hagen just aren't in the same league as the top sprinters here. 

It's going to be a bit of a lotter again tomorrow, we could see any combination of a top 3 from about 10 different guys.. Hard to see past Fernando Gaviria though again tomorrow, that long straight run-in is just perfect for Quick-Step to string it out and put all the other sprinters in the hurt zone before they unleash Gaviria in the last 200m. I think Colbrelli could be close at 28/1 (they've pushed him out since I started this) and there are a few matchbets that look interesting too.  

UPDATE: 10:15

My Secret Pro also likes Colbrelli over Démare and has also said he likes Dupont and Laporte to finish top 10.. So I'll be looking to have maybe a point or two on them in play for a 4th-9th place finish, if a decent price.. Hopefully they'll be odds against, maybe not Laporte, but Dupont could be 6/4 or bigger.. (He's 11/8 in play, not bad seeing as Laporte is actually not sprinting today as he's injured.. glad we dodged a bullet on that one!)

Another update - 11:15am

With Sagan really struggling in the TT yesterday, he said his legs were dead and the heat got to him (didn't help he lost his bidon after just 400m), he might just be slightly off the pace today, so the boosted even money with Will Hill on Kittel to beat him today looks a good bet to me. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on Fernando Gaviria at 3.1 on Betfair

0.5pts each-way on Sonny Colbrelli at 28/1 on Bet365

2pts on Timothy Dupont to finish 4th to 9th at 11/8 with 365 in play

Matchbets

Greipel to beat Cavendish, Gaviria to beat Sagan, Richeze to beat EB Sagan - 2pts at 2.2/1

Colbrelli to beat Démare - 1.5pts at 7/4

Dupont to beat Boudat and Jungels to beat Thomas - 2pts at 11/10

Kittel to beat Sagan - 2pts at evens with Will Hill (boosted from 1.9)