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Published on Thursday, 17 August 2017 12:13

Vuelta 2017 Contenders

A look at the leading GC candidates

Chris Froome looks to become the first Brit to win the Vuelta a Espana and the first man since Bernault Hinault in 1978 to win the Tour-Vuelta double, and he's just 4/5 to do so, a very short price for a Grand Tour. 

Alberto Contador was the 7/4 favourite to win this race last year, but lost 52" in the opening TT and never really recovered, eventually finishing only 4th place, 4'21" behind Quintana. He's a much bigger 9/1 generally this year but that even looks generous I think given how easily he was beaten in the TDF. 

Quintana took the race by the balls last year and went on the attack on stage 15 and that was what ultimately saw him to victory, he caught Froome and Sky napping, something that is unlikely to happen again.. Froome was 3/1 last year, no sign of any prices like that this year, after his comfortable victory in France. Vincenzo Nibali is a former winner of this race from back in 2010 and  will be looking to podium at least again following his 2nd place to Cobo in 2013.   

Joined by the likes of Zakarin, Aru, Lopez, Chaves and Yates, it's going to be another cracker over the hills of Spain. Will we see another surprise winner this year like two years ago with Fabio Aru, or will anyone be able to stop Chris Froome?

It's a course that should suit several of them, with lots of climbing, and the 40km TT will benefit Froome more than a lot of the others. But the they know that and will be targeting some of the steep climbs instead to try to wrestle back some time on Froome, they know he was vulnerable in the Tour on some of the steep finishes. 

There's also going to be a battle of wills and a battle for the pyschological edge on the very first stage, with Sky, Astana, Bahrain Merida and Orica Scott going head to head in the TTT. Trek and Contador suffered a bad time loss last year on the very first stage, will some GC candidate be behind the curve already on day 1 again this year?         

And the battle will rage as early as the 3rd stage, when we will start to get an idea of who has good legs and who doesn't with the trip in to Andorra and the first Cat 1 climbs of the race. The climbs come thick and fast across the three weeks with another tough stage on stage 5 and lots in the second and third week, so there is no such thing as easing yourself in to the third week of this race this year. 

Chris Froome - Team Sky

Evens Favourite - Skybet price boost

Like last year, it was all too easy for Froome in the Tour wasn't it? Ok, it was tight enough for a lot of the race to make it interesting, with only 29" separating first and third right up until stage 19, but as Froome was already ahead and easily the best time triallist in the race, the result was never really in doubt. 

A lot of the credit for Froome's win has to be given to his team though, with Kwiatkowski, Landa, Kwiatkowski and the rest burying themselves on a regular basis to help protect their team leader and get him in the position he was in coming to the last few stages. Kwiatkowski and Landa in particular were immense, and he'll have to cope here without any of the guys who were instrumental in helping him win the Tour

The back-up squad that they are bringing here though is pretty formidable all the same, with Woet Poels, Gianni Moscon, Mikel Nieve, Diego Rosa, Kenny Elissonde and Ian Stannard here to look after him. He again is clearly the best TT'er in the list of GC candidates, he will take a large amount of time off of most of his rivals in stage 16's TT, although Alberto Contador did well in the TT in the Tour to limit his losses to him to just 15" over 22.5kms. This TT is almost twice that distance and probably suits Froome a lot more than the one in the TDF, so you'd still expect him to take at least 30" off of Contador. Aru, Chaves, Lopez, Yates, Zakarin, and even Nibali will struggle to come near him. In the TT in the Tour last year, over 37kms, Froome managed to put 2'36" in to Nibali. 

The team should be good enough too to do a decent time in the opening TT, they could well be one of the strongest teams here for sure. They have a lot of lighter climber guys in the team, but they are still a powerful unit and none of the other GC favourites have a particularly strong team either for it, so he should start off with an advantage over most of his rivals. 

So on most of the hillier stages he should be ok, he should be able to cope with what a lot of the others will throw at him, but his weakspot might be what happens on the extremely steep climbs that he will face on a few stages, particularly the brutal slopes of the Angliru. He coped well enough with them last time up here in 2013, but he seemed to struggle at times on the steep ones in the Tour this year, like he's lost a bit of his zip, while still maintaining a lot of the steady power that's needed to match the accelerations and attack himself of the slightly easier gradients. 

His prep this year has been interesting, quite similar to 2016 in that he didn't do much in the sprint with the view of coming strong late in the year for a crack at the Tour/Vuelta double, but a careless day to Formigal effectively cost him that achievement. He looked under-prepared this season with some poor performances before the Tour, and in the Tour he hadn't looked his dominant self, but he still got through comfortably, and that might be the key thing.. He was pushed and stretched, but not too much, and if his plan was to just get through the Tour keeping a lot of energy in reserve for the Vuelta, he did a very good job of it. 

So it will be up to Froome's rivals to take him on like Quintana did last year with the audacious attack on stage 15 which put him in a spot of bother and ultimately cost him the win. There are plenty of stages to ambush and attack him and this Sky team may not have the fortitude of Landa and Kwiatkowski if things start to fall apart for him on some stages. But he has Woet Poels and he will be a massive help to him, and Gianni Moscon looks in great form too.

Overall though I think the positives outweigh the negatices for him and he looks a pretty solid favourite and definitely the man to beat. He should start with an advantage over his rivals and they will need to put a minute in to him or more before the TT I think and I'm not sure many of them are capable of doing that. But then there is always the Angliru on the second last stage to maybe take the time back on Froome that he took on the TT. 

Vincenzo Nibali - Bahrain Merida

9/2 Best Price (Various)

Winner of this race in 2010, runner up in 2013, 7th in 2011 and then famously only got as far as stage 2 in the 2015 version as a result of his not-so-subtle sticky bottle, Nibali has a chequered history with the Vuelta, that's for sure. The Italian is one of a very small, select club of riders who have won all three Grand Tours, having taken the Tour de France in 2014 and the Giro in 2013 and 2016.

He had a quiet start to the year before winning the Tour of Croatia in April, then went to the Giro as one of the favourites, and although he spent from stage 4 no lower than 5th place he was just not good enough to beat Tom Dumoulin and had to settle for 3rd place behind Quintana who had led the race, with Nibali 2nd going in to the final TT.

It was a very solid and impressive ride from Nibali I thought, he was strangely under the radar, yet was right up there in all the key moments, taking time off of Dumoulin on stage 19, just not enough.

He took a fine stage win on stage 16 to Bormio, outfoxing Mikel Landa at the finish, but he did lose valuable time to Dumoulin on stage 14 to Oropa, finishing 43" behind him as Dumoulin time-trialled his way up the mountain putting out some huge watts to see off a lot of his rivals, including Quintana. He hasn't raced a lot since then, he has been off doing training camps for weeks ahead of the Vuelta and came back to the Italian Nationals and the Tour of Poland where he did ok, but admitted himself that he wasn't expecting much as he had just got back from altitude training. He also said that he expects to be at full fitness for the Vuelta and is ready to go.

He will lose time to Froome in the TT, and his team will not be great in the TTT either so he will be up against and will be trying to make up time elsewhere. In the TTT in Tirreno this year for example, a team that was very similar to his one here, with Pelizotti, Boaro, Visconti and Agnoli finished 53" behind BMC, but 31" behind Movistar and FDJ who would have weaker TTT teams than the likes of Sky and Orica Scott with Chaves and the Yates boys.

And the really steep gradients are not great for Nibs either, but some of the other long, steady climbs like to Sierra Nevada and Sierra de la Pandera he should go well on. He will also be looking for opportunities to attack and gain time on his rivals, stage 3 to Andorra la Vella with the Cat 2 that comes before a 7km descent to the finish might be a stage which he has marked in his roadbook. He should be solid, if unspectacular again, and looks a good shout for the podium, but I am reluctant to back him just yet.   

Alberto Contador - Trek Segafredo

8/1 General 

Think what you want about Contador, say what you like about his drug-taking, cheating past, but his announcement in the weeks running up to this race that this Vuelta would be his last ever professional race was met with an almost universal outpouring of one sentiment - that cycling will miss him and his swashbuckling style and racing will be poorer without him.

And I agree - I've never been a huge fan of his, from the bullshit steak excuse for his Clenbuterol positive or the way he attacked Andy Schleck when he had a mechanical in the yellow jersey of the Tour, but I've always loved the way he races. He has never been afraid to attack from all sorts of places and has lit up many a race in marked contrast to how some races are just controlled and stifled by the likes of Sky.

But old age has certainly caught up with Contador and he definitely isn't the rider he was - he just wasn't good enough in the Tour to be able to challenge the better climbers, and the climbing here is even harder. He will struggle in the TTT with that Trek team and he won't match Froome in the TT either, but he did an impressive enough TT in the Tour on the penultimate stage to suggest that he will beat a lot of his rivals bar Froome to maybe give himself a chance of a good top 6 placing. 

But I think he is going to struggle to finish in the top 3 here as he was just not good enough on the climbs in the TDF and will lose a lot of time on some of these tougher stages. He could lose a minute or more on the penultimate stage to L'Angliru and also on the infernal slopes of stage 17 to Los Machucos. I think there is no doubt we will see him attack lots, seeing as it's his last ever Vuelta and last ever professional race, but the climbing zip just isn't there any more and he will be reeled in by the relentless pace of the Sky-led peloton. I think he is potentially even a lay bet for the top 3 with Betfair when they open their market. 

Ilnur Zakarin

16/1 Best price (Bet365)

It's been a mixed season for Zakarin with some good performances and some poor ones, but the biggest test he's had this year in the Giro he did pretty well in, finishing 5th overall and took three 2nd places in three of the toughest mountain stages. He almost won on Oropa, but faded in the last few metres and Dumoulin got back to him, and he almost won on Etna, but they had let Polanc get too much of a lead. 

He lost 20" on only the second stage, but I think he was unlucky with a late mechanical from what I remember, but he lost quite a lot of time to his rivals in the two TTs, for a guy who is supposed to be the Russian TT champion and that time lost was enough to push him down to 5th overall at the finish, 1'16" behind Vincenzo Nibali's 3rd spot on the podium. 

I'm not sure what his plans might be for this race, he might be going for the GC, he might go stage hunting (he has not won a race beside the Russian TT championships since taking a stage of the TDF of last year) or he might even go after the KOM. But it will be a tough start for him though as that Katusha TTT team isn't the greatest, they're pretty lightweight, I could see him lose 30" or more to Froome on the first stage. 

I think we'll have a fair idea of what his plans and ambitions for the race are after stage 3 and the first mountains, the Cat 1 and Cat 2 will see the first skirmishes and we could see him on the attack. I think he's got a good chance of a top 6 again here, and if he can limit his losses in the TT he might do enough to break in to the top 3. 

Fabio Aru 

18/1 Best Price (Various)

Fabio Aru is the first part of a two-pronged attack from the Astana team with Miguel Angel Lopez being the other half of what could be a very exciting duo. Fabio Aru started very well in the Tour, winning the stage to La Planche des Belles Filles with a strong attack in the last kilometres and then moving in to the leader's jersey after finishing 3rd on stage 3 to Peyragudes.

But he gave the jersey back to Froome the very next day when he lost time on the finish to Rodez and slipped down to 5th by the end after he lost more time on the finish to Serre Chevalier. He got a bit ill towards the end of the race which affected his performance and his final TT in Marseille wasn't great, losing 55" seconds to Contador. 

3rd in Oman, 8th in Abu Dhabi, 5th in the Dauphiné and winner of the Italian Road Championships, he has had a decent season and will be looking to finish the year with a good result in this race. And he's well capable of it of course, having won here in 2015, a year that he finished 10th in the ITT over 38kms, beating Esteban Chaves by 50". They've got a reasonable team here with Lutsenko, Luis Leon Sanchez, Pelle Bilbao and Sergei Chernetckii for in the mountains, and they wouldn't be the worst squad here for the TTT either with some really strong powerhouses and experienced TTers. 

I expect him to be on the attack on a number of stages, doing the 1-2 with Miguel Angel Lopez and they could well cause consternation in this race and take a stage or two between them. Depending on whether one loses time somehow in the first week or so, we could really see them come alive in that block of mountainous stages from stages 8 onwards and one can go for stages wins while the other can sit in and try to move up the GC. 

Miguel Angel Lopez

25/1 Best Price (Ladbrokes)

Part two of the Astana dream team, Miguel Angel Lopez could possibly be one of the revelations of this race, he certainly has the potential to be. He's only 23, but already as a 22-year old he has won the GC in the 2016 Tour de Suisse, beating the likes of Ion Izagirre, Rui Costa and Tejay Van Garderen. Part of the reason he won that TDS was an outstanding TT over 17kms in Davos when he finished 2nd, 18" behind Izagirre, but 1" ahead of none other than Fabian Cancellara (in the TDS!) as well TT experts Maciej Bodnar, Jonathan Castroviejo, Vasil Kiryienka and Geraint Thomas.  

Lopez fractured a tibia in a training crash last Autumn so had a delayed start to his season, not pinning on a race number until early June. He was sitting in 10th place then in the TDS when he crashed out on the descent of the Simplon Pass, fracturing his thumb in the process. More rehabilitation and recovery for him but he was able to return in the Tour of Austria where he incredibly finished in 2nd place in the crazy 800m climb of a prologue, 1" behind his team-mate Oscar Gatto.

He was caught on the wrong side of a split on stage 2 which saw 32 riders gain 1'42" on the peloton, so even though he won stage 4 brilliantly, it was not enough to overhaul Stefan Denifl of AquaBlue and he had to settle for 3rd overall, but that was an oustanding return to action from him considering what he had been through. He then followed that with another stage win in the Vuelta a Burgos and finished 4th overall, but he, like the rest of the field, was blown away by Mikel Landa on stage 3. 

I think he could be a revelation as I said in this race. I think he might be given the freedom by Astana to go and do his own thing and if he can get himself in to a good position then the team might get behind him and Aru can go stage hunting. He's a very good TTer as I mentioned already and I could see him take time off a lot of his rivals in that final TT. He should also contribute to a decent TTT showing in the opening stage so he could find himself with an advantage over the likes of Contador and Nibali already on stage 1. 

I worry a little bit about the fact he has not raced so much this year, but that could be a good thing as he'll come here fresher than anyone and ready to tear it up, and his performances in the TOA and VAB suggest that he is in great shape anyway and will only get better with some hard racing in his legs in the opening week. I also worry a little about the fact that when he came up against some real world-class opposition in Landa in the VAB he had no answer to him and lost 55". But it is to be expected that he was still getting race fitness back and after a training block since then should come here with a shot at the podium potentially, at an attractive 25/1 with Ladbrokes. 

Johann Esteban Chaves

9/1 Best Price (WillHill)

In my intro to Chaves for his race last year I said this "This kid is the business. A brilliant climber, a calm, cool calculated killer and a thoroughly likeable chap to boot. He rode brilliantly last year to take two superb stage wins and finish 5th overall. He followed that up with 8th in Lombardia and a win in the Abu Dhabi Tour to polish off an excellent season for him.... I think he is very capable of a podium and the 9/1 each-way with William Hill is worth taking."

And he was indeed good enough for a podium, finishing 3rd overall, but was no match, like the rest of them, to Nairo Quintana and Chris Froome, but to finish 3rd behind those two is no great shame at all. He lost a lot of time though to Froome in the 37km TT on stage 19, shipping 3'13", and lost time to a lot of other rivals, including Alberto Contador who jumped above him in to 3rd place with just two stages to go. But an audacious piece of attacking riding on the final mountain on stage 20 saw him leapfrog back over Contador and back on to the podium step.

He didn't ride a whole lot last year, taking a break after the Giro until the Olympics, but it didn't seem to hamper him too much in the Vuelta, except maybe the lack of stamina showed in the TT. He finished the season brilliantly though winning the Giro dell'Emilia and Lombardia. This year has been a bit tough for him though, when he suffered a knee injury in the spring after a pretty decent start in the Australian race (2nd in the TDU and 9th in the HST). That took him off the bike for 4 weeks and then quite a while to get back his fitness, returning in the Criterium du Dauphiné in June, where he finished 26th. 

His first start in the Tour de France began with tragic news though for the little Colombian when his close friend and personal physio was killed while out riding her bike in Bogota, Colombia on the Sunday night of the second stage. It really affected him mentally and he never recovered during the race, struggling to make an impact. But that, as tragic as it was for him might make him mentally stronger and determined to go out and do something in her memory in this Vuelta. 

We know he is capable of brilliant rides, 2nd in the Giro and 3rd in the Vuelta don't just happen by themselves, and with the strong team he has here with him with the two Yates brothers, Carlos Verona, Juul-Jensen, Svein Tuft and Jack Haig, he should be well looked after in the hills and should go well in the TTT. Well, most of the team should go well in the TTT, he just needs to make sure that he is one of the five that finishes with the likes of CJJ, Tuft and Haig to get the best time, I could see the two Yates brothers working hard early and then dropping off as TT'ing is not their thing. 

But one thing that clouds the whole situation is who in the team will be the team leader? The confusion is very evident in the fact that both he and Adam Yates are 33/1 to win, the bookies don't know yet how to split them, Simon Yates looks to be there to make up the numbers following his tough TDF, he's 150/1 to win the race. 

Adam Yates - Orica Scott

33/1 Best Price (Various)

As mentioned above, Adam is the same price as Chaves to win this race at 33/1, and after finishing 4th in Catalunya, 9th in the Giro and 5th in the Tour de Pologne, Yates will be hoping to keep his run of Top 10s in stage races going. He rode well in the Giro and had 7 top 10 placings, but it was the two TTs that hurt him. At one point he sat in 3rd place after the stage to Etna but he lost a lot of time on the stage to Blockhaus when he was caught up in the crash, losing 4'39" to Quintana and 3'39" to Nibali. 

They should go well in the TTT in general as a team, it's whether he can hang in there with them or not is the question, or whether they decide to wait for him and he slows them down, but they need to keep him in the GC running.. If he gets dropped in the TTT then it's a big problem for him and he could lose a minute to his rivals, as well as the team leadership confirmation to Chaves. He will also struggle in the final TT, and could find some of the climbs a bit steep maybe, so I'm dodging him I think, I'd rather be on Chaves of the two of them, but neither of them fill me with much confidence to be honest. 

Outsiders and Longshots

Not many would have predicted that Esteban Chaves and Tom Dumoulin would have been battling for the win in 2016, Dumoulin was 500/1 and Chaves was 125/1. It was a bit more 'normal' last year though with 11/4 shot Quintana beating 3/1 shot Chris Froome, although 7/4 favourite Contador was out of the placings in 4th.. Can anyone do a Dumoulin and cause an upset this year? Let's look at some of the possibile outsiders who could cause a shock..

David de la Cruz is a rider I fancy for this race again this year, I think he will do good things and is capable of a stage win too potentially. Of course I'm biased about a rider who won for us at 125/1 last year, but he showed last year that he is capable of riding a good GC race too, taking the Red Jersey after his victory on stage 9 and riding consistantly well for the rest of the race to finish 7th overall in the GC. Since then he has continued to improve and this year he has again shown he is one of the best up-and-coming GC riders around. 

7th in Valenciana; 11th in Oman; 23rd in Paris Nice - he was one of the many caught out on stages 1 and 2, but did come out of it with a stage win on the final stage to Nice and an impressive 6th in the TT to Mont Brouilly; 4th in Pais Vasco with a stage win on stage 3 to Donostia that put him in the leader's jersey and a very impressive 5th place in the 28km TT that lifted him from 9th place to 4th on the last stage; and just a few weeks back another impressive performance in the Vuelta a Burgos, finishing 3rd after a superb 2nd to a rampaging Landa on the stage to Picon Blanco. 

This guylooks the real deal and I think it's only a matter of time before he becomes Spain's next Alberto Contador, loved by the fans for his attacking nature and genuine GC credentials. I think he will have a great Vuelta and the 100/1 on him that is widely available looks a great outsider bet to have in the locker. The 33/1 on him to finish in the top 3 looks worth having an interest in too. QuickStep should go ok in the opening TT, he will gain time on some rivals and he will do a lot better than others in the final TT to maybe move him right up the GC again.

(NOTE: since I wrote this this morning, it has been announced that DLC has signed for Sky, something I'm not exactly happy with, but it might motivate him even more to try to impress his new team-mates. And maybe if he goes up the road some day they won't chase quite as hard as if it was another rider, so I'm happy to stay on him. 

I was in two minds where to put Rafal Majka, I had originally put him in to the favourites group above, but changed my mind and have added him to the longshots. And I'm still not sure. Like Adam Yates and Chaves he is around the 33/1 mark, and he could well be a top 10 challenger in this race and may even be pushing for stage wins or even the KOM jersey.

He had a very unfortunate end to his TDF in June, crashing on the descent of the Col de la Biche on stage 9 while sitting in 10th place in the GC and having to abandon during the rest day as he had nasty contusions all over his body. Luckily for him though he had no fractures and he was back in training soon enough after that and returned to racing in the Tour de Pologne, his home race, at the end of July. He pulled off a fine performance there to finish 2nd overall, having taken 3rd place on the two key stages of the race. Before the Tour he had finished 2nd in the Tour of California and won the Tour of Slovenia, so he clearly has great legs this season.

But why in the longshots? Well when push came to shove against the top opposition in the Tour, he lost lots of time in the opening TT (37" behind Froome over just 14kms) and he was a bit behind all the key GC rivals on the first climbing test of the race at LPDBF. But it was too early in the race (and a bit of an oddball finish to really gauge him on) so it's hard to know how he'd really have gone. But he comes here now a lot dresher because of his withdrawal and with a good training race in Poland under his belt. I think he is a pretty good shout for a top 10, maybe even a top 6 but I can't see him in the top 3 because of his poor TT ability. A stage win would not be a surprise, and if he loses a lot of time some stage early on then he may even go after the KOM jersey, which he'd have a shot at of course having won it twice in the TDF before.

Wilko Kelderman is a bit of an enigma still for me, I find it hard to rate him as he just seems so anonymous and non-descript the whole time. He's had a consistent and solid, if unspectacular season far with 9th in the TDU, 7th in Romandie, was a DNF on stage 9 of the Giro while sitting in 16th place and just a few weeks back was 4th in that Tour de Pologne that Majka finished 2nd in, he was in 3rd place going in to the final day but Woet Poels winning the stage lifted him above Kelderman in to the places.

The highest he has ever finished in a Grand Tour though is 7th in the Giro in 2014, and his 32nd in the Tour last year and 79th the year before doesn't exactly fill you with confidence about him. He's a solid 5th to 20th kind of guy but I don't think we'll be seeing him break in to the top 6.  

Romain Bardet had a great TDF again, winning the stage to Peyragudes for us at 12/1 and just about holding on to his 3rd place in the GC despite a disastrous final TT. Based on that TT performance and the fact that AG2R are a poor TT unit as well, Bardet is going to be up against it here to try to finish on the podium again. He raced two stage races already this year in Spain, finishing 15th in Pais Vasco and 10th in  Catalunya, and also took 6th in the Criterium du Dauphiné in June. He's never done the Vuelta before (or the Giro in fact) but his record in the TDF reads 15th, 6th, 9th, 2nd, 3rd in the last 5 years, so it'll be interesting to see how he goes in his first Vuelta.

He will go well on some of the tough mountain stages, he won on the steep finish to Pegragudes after all in the TDF this year so we could see him going well on a number of the tough stages here. But the TT will kill his chances of a top result, but he's capable of a top 6 for sure. 

Woet Poels is an interesting one in that if anything were to happen to Froome he'd be a great replacement as team leader and he could really be a dark horse here for a top result - it's not unheard of for Sky to place two guys in the top 3, seeing as their top lieutentant on the road often finishes quite close to Froome in the key stages. Poels is in great shape too though despite being out of action for four months after suffering a knee injury in the Ruta del Sol and not returning until the Route du Sud in June.

He thought he was going to be in the TDF squad but he was left out, but he's here now for the Vuelta having prepped well for it in Poland with a stage win and 3rd place in the Tour of Poland. Poels is an excellent TT'er so there is a good chance that he will be in with a shout of a podium place, coming to the final TT, a bit like Landa in the TDF. 

Steven Kruijswijk doesn't want to be remembered as the most unlucky loser of a Giro in recent years, but rather as the fine stage-race rider that he is, that almost won the Giro and actually pulled off a good result on the face of it to take 4th. Kruijswijk is quietly continuing to pull off decent rides and would have done a lot better in recent years were it not for a string of bad luck to hit him. He came in to the Giro this year it turns out with broken ribs and  it took him a long time in the race to start to feel a bit better, but amazingly he was still sitting in 10th place with just two stages to go, but unfortunately had to pull out of the race because of stomach problems.

He followed that with an excellent ride in the Tour de Suisse, finishing 3rd, 5th and 6th on road stages and 6th in the ITT over 28.6kms late in the race, showing that he can pull it off against the clock when he needs to. He also went well in the Tour de l'Ain just after that with 5th overall and 5th on the tough hilly stage to Oyonnax. He has a decent team here with him and George Bennett will be a huge asset to have as his lieutenant, Kruijswijk could well be a dark horse that will get better and better as the race goes on and will like the really long climbs to Sierra Pandera and Sierra Nevada. At 40/1 he's one I'd like to have a little on. 

Movistar don't really have an out and out team leader for the race for probably the first time ever, with Carlos Betancur and Marc Soler their leaders, and Marc Soler might do alright here too, he finished 3rd in the Vuelta a Catalunya this year but it's hard to see him break in to the top 6, let alone the top 3. I think we'll see Betancur on the attack, stage hunting, rather than riding a steady GC race, he won't be good enough in the final TT to come near the top 6.

Domenico Pozzovivo, Sergio Henao, Warren Barguil, Tejay Van Garderen, Dani Moreno, Nicolas Roche, Davide Vilella, Andrew Talansky - all are going to be fighting for a top ten finish and are all capable of winning a stage along the way potentially too, it just goes to show the depth of talent at this year's Vuelta..  

Conclusion

This is a pretty stellar lineup we have here, with four-time TDF winner and three-time Vuelta runner-up Chris Froome, Triple Grand Tour winners Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali, Vuelta Winner Fabio Aru, Vuelta Podium finishers Esteban Chaves and Sammy Sanchez and loads of young pretenders to the crown who will put it up to Froome over the three weeks. 

Froome looks rock solid though - a great team, good prep (a balance between altitude climbing and fulfilling TDF winners Criterium duties), a great TT, a good team for the TTT, plus the confidence that winning the TDF for a fourth time brings. He also is massively motivated as he knows he can do this, and only a stupid, lazy mistake by the team last year cost him his double. Some of the climbers will hurt him for sure, but he is excellent at minimizing his losses on these tough climbs by allowing himself to go out the back door and seemingly start to struggle, only to keep the power steady and recover later in the climbs.

Nibali will be a big danger, as will Esteban Chaves, Miguel Angel Lopez, Ilnur Zakarin and Steven Kruijswijk. It should be an excellent three week's racing, here's hoping to a run of results like last year again!

Recommendations:

4pts win on Chris Froome at evens with Skybet

0.5pts each-way on Miguel Angel Lopez at 25/1 with Ladbrokes

0.5pts each-way on Steven Kruijswijk at 40/1 with Bet365

0.5pts win on David de la Cruz at 100/1 with various

1pt win on DDLC to finish in the top 3 at 33/1 with Skybet