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Published on Saturday, 10 September 2016 16:38

Vuelta Stage 21

Las Rozas to Madrid

Sat 11th Sept, 104.8kms 

So on to the final stage, the traditional end of Grand Tour parade, with a short stage to Madrid and a likely sprint finish. It brings an end to what has been a very good Vuelta for us, finished off nicely with Fraile taking the KOM. 

So, so unluckly today - at one point with about 4kms to go I was thinking we were going to get the 1-2 at 50/1 and 40/1, but Pierre Latour was incredibly resilient and clung on in there. Even with 300m to go it looked like Atapuma was going to take it as he gained a lead of around 20m. But Latour kept coming back and when he attacked in the last 50m Atapuma finally cracked. 

We'll take the e/w at 50/1 though, but it was very annoying to have 2nd and 4th on the stage, we could have had a big payout today if Latour wasn't there! The fourfold won though which was good, the Latour matchbet won, so we ended up +6.7pts.

What a day it was though in the KOM battle - Elissonde attacked early on the first climb, blew up, Fraile took 5pts to take the lead, Elissonde gets in the break, Fraile suffers a mechanical and drops back... but the break hoovered up all the big points so Elissonde could only claim 1pt on the third Cat 2. He could still have won it and was trading as short priced favourite to do so, but he popped in the end and failed to take any more points, so Fraile takes the KOM for the second year running and lands our top KOM bet at 11/2.. I hope some of you added to it last night at 5/4 too, it was nervous going today at times, but it got there!

Not such good news for the Green Jersey betting though as Fabio Felline continues to defy logic and pulled off the ride of his life to appear out of nowhere in the closing kilometres to mug Frank for 4th, but more importantly took 17pts on the day to move from 4th in the competition to leading by 7pts going in to the final day. It will take a miracle for Valverde to win it now, which is very annoying, as it was looking perfect for a while with the break looking like they would take all the points. 

Froome failed to make any impression today, it was a real damp squib, but the other star of the day was Esteban Chaves and his Orica Bike Exchange team - they were sensational again, he was sensational and stole 1'23" from Contador to move on to the podium to land the each-way on our pre-race recommendation at 9/1. Quintana easily marked all of Froome's efforts, but Contador and Brambilla couldn't stay with them, but it was a brilliant ride by Brambilla again, who was with the GC leaders right up until the last few kilometres. 

The Route

A westerly run for 40kms and then a 5.8kms circuit around Madrid, not much more to say about it! It's almost completely flat with three 180° bends and a pretty long straight finish for over 1km. 

Contenders and Favourites

I'll go straight to it tonight, no need to beat around the bush - I think Nik Arndt will finally get this right and land the stage win for Giant-Alpecin. Koen de Kort hit the front too soon I think and was just inviting a large gathering of challengers behind them as they hit the last 400m. If they can hold off a little bit longer on this sprint he has a great chance I think of finally winning. He was behind Kort, who gave him a good leadout to be fair, but Cort Nielsen got the jump on Arndt and got a head start. On the line Arndt was travelling much the faster and could have won it with another 20m. 

Cort Nielsen obviously was very strong in taking the win the other day, but 5/2 for this stage now? No thanks.. he has gotten lost a few times in other stages when we were on him so I'm not prepared to risk it again with him. Orica clearly are in great form and in great heart, but I'm not sure about him as I said at such a short price. 

Gianni Meersman has shown that he just isn't fast enough in a flat out sprint so I'm going to leave him too. Jempy Drucker has a stage win and a 3rd place. On stage 18 he was in 11th place with 250m to go but flew up the centre of the road on his own to almost take the stage. I think he looked very strong and could well podium again. 

Kristian Sbaragli just isn't good enough, nor is Rudiger Selig and Schwarzmann. Daniele Bennati sprinted really well too on stage 18, to take 4th place and win our match bet, he could well take a top 6 again I think. With the disappointment of Contador losing podium and they not taking a single stage win, they will be desperate to try to get something out of the final stage. I can't see them winning it though. 

Fabio Felline - what else can he do? He has been up there on mountain stages, sprint stages and even took ninth place on the TT, is there anything he can't do? I don't know if he can break on the podium tomorrow though, it might be a case of 'job done' for him with the Green Jersey and they may try setting up Reijnen again who has finished 8th and 6th. I would go nuts if he landed a podium spot and I wasn't on him, so I'm going to have a little nibble at 80/1. 

Van Genechten, Van der Sande, Manzin - they can all go close, but won't podium I think. Of course we might see a break try to make it all the way, but it will be hard. And picking who will be in that break is almost impossible at this stage, but we could see the likes of Jan Bakelants, Jens Keukeliere, Dries Devenyns, Gatis Smukulis and Simon Gerrans might try to get away late on too. But it's unlikely to succeed and we'll have the inevitable sprint.

Valverde will need to take the 3 intermediate points without reply from Felline and finish at least 11th, or finish 8th on the stage, with Felline out of the reckoning for him to steal the jersey back.. It is possible, we've seen him mix it up in the sprints before and we saw him steal it from Purito on the last day last year, it's unlikely now, but it wouldn't surprise me with Valverde..  

And that's it - it has been a pretty good Vuelta for us with several winners along the way. I think we were robbed with the Team Classification with Movistar, the big break on stage 13 totally screwed us - Movistar were in the lead by nearly 5 minutes and trading at 2/5 to take it.. but any teams with men in the break that took 33 minutes that day shot up the standings and Movistar, who had no one in the break, suddenly were 22'20" down. They managed to pull it back to 4'43" by today, but still lost. And it looks like we will be very unlucky with Valverde for Green, to lose it like that today was sickening. Talansky comfortably took the top 10 placing for us, in fact, he wasn't far off landing us a 50/1 podium spot too, he finished 5th. Meintjes was a big disappointment though, and the Atapuma to win a stage bet also went down in heart-breaking fashion today. 

Overall though we finished well ahead, something in the region of 70-80pts I'd say, I'm happy with that. I hope you've enjoyed the previews, I'm going to be taking a break for a while now but will cover some of the end of season races and the Worlds of course. Thanks again for your support, it's been a fun, but tiring 3 weeks. 

Recommendations -

3pts win on Nik Arndt at 10/3 with Skybet

0.5pts each-way on Jempy Drucker at 11/2 with Skybet

0.25pts each-way on Kiel Reijnen at 80/1 with Skybet

Matchbets

Bennati to beat Felline, Manzin to beat TVDS, Drucker to beat Arndt - 2pts on the treble at 5/2 with Bet365