Tour of Poland Stage 3: 

Kraków to Rzeszów - 226km

"Tomorrow is the kind of stage that he (Riblon) will love to get in a breakaway on. At 66/1 he may give you something to get excited about for a few hours, and if he gets to that last climb with a few minutes, who knows - look at Alpe d'Huez!"

Well that couldn't have worked out any better now could it. As predicted Riblon got in the early break of the day and soloed away to an impressive victory which almost put him in to the yellow jersey. To make it all the more remarkable, Riblon only got a ride in the Tour because JC Peraud crashed on that TT in the TDF!  So another big winner for us at 66/1, our biggest one in the last month, following 55/1 on Dan Martin and 38/1 on Rui Costa. 

The GC saw another big shake-up with Majka rallying in the last few kms to slip in to yellow, 4 seconds ahead of Henao. There is still only 11" separating 3rd to 11th, with Kiserlovski, Basso, Pozzovivo and Izaguirre all still well in contention. Wiggins and Nibali lost even more time and stand 23' and 31' down respectively. 

Stage 3 Profile

Stage 3 doesn't start until Tuesday as Monday is a rest day as they fly from Italy to start the Tour of Poland finally on Polish soil! But there really isn't much to say about the profile of Stage 3, it's a flat stage which will almost certainly end in a bunch sprint. There are 4 or 5 little lumps along the way but nothing tougher than a Cat 3 climb, which comes 36km from the finish. When they get to Rzeszów they do three laps of a 6km circuit. 

Main Contenders:

There is a dearth of real sprinting quality at the TDP and also there is the fact that teams only have six riders so that means that a) we can narrow down the field quite a bit, but b) there is also the chance of surprise winners! Some of the sprinters that do line up are Sky’s Ben Swift, BMC’s Thor Hushovd, Fran Ventoso of Movistar, Belkin’s Mark Renshaw and AG2R’s Yauheni Hutarovich. It's really hard to call a winner right now out of that lot, I will wait until the bookies price it up Monday night to try to make some value selections. Still impossible to call the winner of the overall too, anyone of about 20 riders could win it at this stage. 

Come back for an update on Monday night!

So the prices are out for Stage 3 and once again we see a bit of a difference of opinion in what is a very hard one to call.

Paddy Power has Hutarovich the 4/1 favourite, Skybet have Ben Swift the 4/1 favourite (are 7/1 Hutarovich) and Bet365 have Mezgec the 6/1 favourite. SkyBet are also only 5/1 about Leigh Howard whereas he is 14/1 with Paddy Power! Mark Renshaw ranges from 6/1 to 14/1 also.

Hutarovich to me is a poor enough favourite at 4/1 - granted he has won a fair few races over the years and has been pretty consistent in sprint finishes, but he has had a poor year with his best results being some 2nds and 3rds in pretty low grade races like the Classic Loire Atlantique. Ben Swift's year hasn't been much better, but you feel he is on the upward slope whereas Hutarovich seems to be going the other way. Swift also has a pretty strong team to lead him out with Luke Rowe, Danny Pate and possibly even Wiggins (he has nothing else to ride for after all) in his team of six.  

Mezgec is an interesting runner - the Slovenian finished 3rd in 3 stages of this year's Giro, and although he hasn't won a race yet either this year the form of those results is far greater than those of Hutarovich or Swift. Thor Hushovd on the other hand has 3 victories to his credit this year, not bad for a 35 year old! Hushovd is one that the bookies seem to be wary of and are all just around 7/1 on him. A man of his experience and power should be able to bully his way in to a top 3 placing - he too has a pretty strong looking lead out with Matthias Frank, Phinney, Pinotti and Santaromito to help get him in the right spot. 

Ventoso has been pretty mediocre too this year and I don't think Movistar have a team to lead him out, and Mark Renshaw looks like he will have to do all his own work too. The one thing though that might upset the sprinters day though is the fact that the teams have only 6 riders, so if a break does go and get a good gap then it will be a lot harder to pull it back than say in the Grand Tours where they have 9 riders or thereabouts. 

So on a very hard stage to pick a winner from I suggest a small bet on Ben Swift at 7/1 with a Top 3 bet on Mezgec and Hushovd.