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Published on Monday, 21 August 2017 00:04

Vuelta Stage 4

Escaldes-Engordany to Tarragona

Tues 22nd August, 198.2kms 

The stage starts in Andorra, but 8kms later they finally enter Spain at Lleida on a stage that descends out of the Andorran hills for almost 200kms until they reach the coast where we should see a sprint in Tarragona. 

The Vuelta came here last in 2013, when Philippe Gilbert, resplendant in the rainbow stripes won a sprint from Edvald Boasson Hagen and Max Richeze. It was quite a similar profile, but they came from a completely different direction, coming from Maella, west of Tarragona.  

Stage 3 Review

Well we finally got our break, and I managed to nail both of my picks for the breakaway, with de Gendt and Geniez both getting away in the break of the day. But QuickStep decided they would not give them much rope and went after them all day, never letting the gap grow above around 5 mins. And as they hit the Rabassa, the race blew apart, as did the break, with TdeG one of the first to crack,surprisingly, and Geniez and Vilella forging on ahead in an attempt to take the KOM points, which Geniez duly did, but only just.. 

Behind, Sky had taken over from QS and blew the race to bits. 5/1 favourite for the stage was one of the first high-profile casualties of the day, but soon a whole gaggle of top GC candidates were under pressure, with Contador, Majka, Kruijswijk, Kelderman, Simon Yates and many others going out the back door. Froome ripped it up the final climb, Chaves stayed with him with relative ease while behind Aru, Nibali, Roche, TVG, Bardet and a few others fought for their Vueltas on only the first mountain day. 

Rui Costa looked to be in a great position at one point, sitting in behind the Sky train, but then inexplicably, he and Darwin Atapuma took off on a Kamikaze attack, gaining only about 18", whilst wasting an awful lot of energy. But even when they were caught they continued to race at the front with Atapuma charging down the descent at the front, with Costa on his wheel. And sure enough, as soon as they started climbing the final climb, Costa was immediately under pressure and he was to eventually come home in 19th with Kelderman, Kruijswijk, Lopez, LL Sanchez and Betancur. 

In the end, the Shark nibbled them all and stole a pretty easy stage win, he didn't have any rivals really, but DLC did well to take 2nd and move up to 2nd overall, just 2" behind Froome, he has a real shot at challenging for a top 3 I think still but he'll need to hang in there longer on the big climbs, he struggled a little bit when Froome went full gas, but most of them did and he dug in to claw his way back, which is encouraging. 

So Froome leads, thanks to him being gifted 3 bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint, but it's pretty tight at the top, with TVG a surprise 4th place, on the same time as his team-mate Nico Roche who also rode very well today to finish with the lead group. Chaves was impressive, he could yet be Froome's biggest challenger, that is, as long as he can keep that sort of performance up for three weeks, which hasn't always been the case. And the other question from today is whether Sky can continue to crush it up all the climbs for three weeks, like they did today? Puccio and Moscon were incredible, Puccio literally blew the whole peloton apart on the Rabassa, something I didn't expect to see to be honest. 

So a disaster on the bets front, Woods beat Costa thanks to Costa riding with his head up his ass, and Woods riding very impressively indeed to take 10th place, finishing 25" down. It's not been a good start at all for us, but I'm hoping we can turn it around pretty soon. On a positive note, Geniez looks interested in the KOM jersey for us and Trentin could well take the points jersey tomorrow. 

The Route

They head due south almost all day long, descending slowly out of Andorra, crossing the border in to Spain after 7.7kms and it's a pretty steady and gradual descent, almost flat in parts. It does kick up a little for a Cat 3 climb with 119kms gone, and although it's 13kms long, it's very gentle at just 2.9% average gradient. It descends at a faster rate for the next 35kms to the intermediate sprint at Valls which comes with 31kms to go, so expect the sprinters teams to have reeled in the break in time so they can fight for the points. 

The last 25kms are almost flat as they head towards the coast but when they approach Tarragona inside the last 10kms or so it starts to get really complicated and dangerous. There's a series of eight roundabouts with about 10kms to go, on the outskirts of the city within about a kilometre, then they have a straight for about 2kms, a roundabout at the 5km to go mark, a long arcing bend with 4kms to go and on to the tricky last 3kms.

There's 7 roundabouts that I can see in the last 3kms, some big, some not so big, and as they hit the 2kms to go mark the road starts to rise gently until about 800m to go, then a short descent before it rises up for the last 500m to the line.

Contenders and Favourites

So we've had one sprint so far, if you could call it a sprint.. it was a proper mess thanks to the power and intelligence of QuickStep inside the last 4kms, they 'blew it apart' as Lefevre claimed they would before the stage. The only thing was they did it so well Matteo Trentin missed out on his chance to win the stage, as his team-mate had stolen it. Behind, we sort of got a sprint, with some of the main protagonists involved, Trentin showed his power and speed by holding off all the rest, without I think really hitting top gear so as not to catch Lampaert. 

Sacha Modolo looked like he would get up for a place, but the effort to stay with Quickstep in the last 3kms meant that he was shattered and faded in the last 50m in to 5th place. Edward Theuns was impressive to stay with the QS trio as they split the race, he almost missed the split but closed it by himself. He finished fast too, but was not good enough to pass Trentin. Will Dege be feeling better next time? Will he be back as their main sprinter again, or will Theuns get another go? 

Adam Blythe was very impressive too, he also bridged across to the QS group just as the split was being made, he saw the danger/opportunity and rode across to it pretty easily, and sprinted well to take 3rd place. WIth a more 'normal' leadout he might get even closer next time around - Aaron Gate punctured just when he was needed in the finale and maybe the rest of the team will hide away a bit more and give everything for Blythe in the last 5kms. He's a real streetfighter and might like this finish more than some of the others. 

Michael Schwarzmann did well for us at a decent price of 50/1, taking 6th just behind the line of four in front, he had Konrad a few places behind but he wasn't much help for him, maybe in a more orthodox leadout, if that is possible on a tricky finish like this, he might get close again. Tom Van Asbroeck was about the only other sprinter who came close to Trentin, he was a bike length or so behind Schwarzmann, I'm not sure he's capable of getting much closer in a more normal sprint. 

A lot of the other sprinters didn't even get a look in, so we don't really know how they would have fared, but surely the likes of Jens Debuscherre, Magnus Cort Neilsen, Rojas and Lobato will come closer this time. Some teams had a really tough day today though so maybe the break has a chance? It's an easy route to control the break though I think and with so few sprint chances left and most teams missing out on Sunday, I think they will set it up for a sprint.

But it's really hard to get excited about this stage, I'm almost bordering on a 'no-bet' day to try to keep bullets back for stages 5 and 6 because I think I might have two guys who I think will go very well, one of whom I've been told by a team-mate will be going for it. 

But now the prices have come out, little appeals to me - Theuns at 9/4? No way. No thanks.. Crazy price. I'd rather be on Degenkolb now at 11/2. Modolo at 10/3? No, not this time. Trentin looked very fast to me the other day and is about the only one who interests me, but again he's pretty short. But I think the motivation for Trentin to take the points jersey will be enough to see him to victory, especially if Jungels, Alaphilippe, Terpstra and Lampaert get him in to position. Schwarzmann at 20/1 might go close, as will Blythe at 10/1, but the only other bet I'm remotely interested in is Cort Nielsen at 15/1, he will surely be closer this time and can maybe land a place.  

I don't understand why Debuscherre is 13/8 to beat Van Asbroeck, Van Asbroeck really suffered today, he was one of the first dropped with 130kms still to go, and as well as that, in races where they have both finished in the top 25, Debus has won 61% of the time. Yes, TVA finished well on Sunday, but that was a total mess and Debus is sure to be closer this time. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on Matteo Trentin at 10/3 with Bet365, you might get better later on with Skybet or one of the others

0.5pts each-way on Magnus Cort Nielsen at 15/1 with Will Hill

Matchbets

Debuscherre to beat Van Asbroeck - 2pts at 13/8 with 365

Add Blythe to beat Schwazmann to make it a double - 1pt at 3.24/1