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Published on Saturday, 01 September 2018 23:08

Vuelta Stage  9

Tal. de la Reina – La Covatilla

Sunday 2nd Sept, 195kms 

After a number of transition stages and sprints we finally tackle the big mountains again as the race heads to the 'Central Chain' mountains, west of Madrid, with a summit finish on La Covatilla. 

The climb to La Covatilla was last used in 2011 when Dan Martin outsprinted a small elite group that included Brad Wiggins, Bauke Mollema, Juan José Cobo, Chris Froome and Vincenzo Nibali. As you can see in the video below, the gradients are steep up until about 1500m to go when it then eases back a bit, and it becomes a sprint to the line, if indeed it is a small group comes to the line together. 

We've had some sparring, we've had some shadow boxing, but so far they haven't really tackled anything of the length or steepness of La Covatilla, and it comes at the end of a 200km stage that also includes a Cat 1, 2 and 3. The first 100kms are very lumpy and then it's downhill and flat for the next 80kms or so before the 23km ascent to the finish. 

Stage 8 Review

A really crap break went early today, with Tiago Machado strangely deciding to do something for once and get in the break. Their lead balloned to over 12 minutes at one point, but with 6kms to go they were reeled in and the sprint finish was set up. Peter Sagan had a mechanical with 60kms or so to go and had quite a job to get back on, and it might just have fatigued him enough to stop him winning, with Valverde outsprinting him in the last 50m. It was another superb result for Bala, who just keeps on winning, he's unbelieveable....

Good sprint from DVP to finish 3rd and it was also an impressive finish from Ion Izagirre in 4th, both beating Nizzolo in 5th. Yates and Kruijswijk both finished in the top 10, showing good legs ahead of tomorrow. No sign of Trentin again though, I'm giving up on him now. 

Tiesj Benoot spent most of the day at the back of the peloton, and is it any wonder when you saw the pictures of his knee last night looking like 'steak haché'.. I tweeted at the time to trade out of your Benoot bets and I got 0.2 of my 0.3pts back from Bet365 by cashing out. 

No luck with the stage bets, but all of the matchbets won to land 7pts of profit, we got lucky with Buchmann beating Mas by one place.. 

The Route

A north-east run for 150kms. before they turn south for the last 50kms. The opening 35kms are pretty flat then suddenly the road tips upwards pretty quickly as they start on the Cat 1 Puerto del Pico (right). It starts out easy enough but gets steeper towards the middle, hitting 7-9% around half way up, with a steeper finish that hits 10-15% in the last kilometre. 

6kms of a descent is followed by the Cat 3 Alto de Gredos, 10kms at 3.8%, then it rolls along for 27kms until they hit the next big challenge, the Cat 2 Puerto de Pena Negra. It's not too tough at 4.5%, but it is 13kms long and takes them to almost 2,000 metres. 

14kms of a steep descent is followed by 65kms of rolling, mostly downhill roads that takes them south to the foothills of the final climb. They actually start climbing 23kms from the finish as they pass through Bejar, but the categorised part of the climb, the first Esp category climb of the race, is just under 10kms long, at an average of 7.1%. 

The first 1500m and the last 1500m are pretty easy, but the 7kms in the middle averages around 9.1%, making it a pretty tough finish to the stage. The road does ease off to around 2% average for the last 1500m, so if there is a small group comes to the line together we could see a small sprint like in 2011. One thing to bear in mind is that there will be a 7-8mph headwind on the final stretch to the line, and as it is wide open at the top of the mountain it could mean that it is going to be a hindrance to attackers in the closing kilometre and it could mean it comes down to small group sprint. 

Contenders and Favourites

Break or GC? GC or break? The same old conundrum day in, day out with the Vuelta, it all comes down to who gets in the break, and how keen the likes of Movistar, Sky, Astana, Groupama FDJ  and LottoJumbo are to pull the break back to fight it out for the stage win. It is a rest day on Monday, so I think it might be that the GC men go full gas to try to make a selection, gain some time gaps and get some proper heirarchy in the GC. If that happens, the break is doomed. 

We know that Sky like to try to impose themselves on the first summit finish of a Grand tour, Geraint Thomas did it again this year in the Tour, taking the lead and then defending it from then on, something Froome has been doing for years also. But is there anyone in the Sky ranks who can do this in this race? It doesn't really look like it to me, Michal Kwiatkowski might struggle on this long climb, he looks like he is tiring to me, but can David De La Cruz pull off that sort of performance and lift himself from 15th place in the GC? I'm not sure about that either. And none of the rest of them will, they all struggled as soon as they hit the final climb on stage 4. 

Will Movistar want to try to blow things up on the first day in the real mountains? They have a very strong squad here who can power in to the first 5kms of this climb and then let Valverde, Carapaz and Quintana tear things up in the last 5kms. As the road eases with 1500m to go, Nairo Quintana might well have to go with 4-5kms left on the 7-8% gradients to make a gap that he can hold to the line. And if that doesn't happen, they have Alejandro Valverde waiting in the wings to sprint to the win from a small group, we know he has the best sprint out of all these guys here.. but Valverde seems to have one thing that could hold him back, climbs around 2,000m seem to be a problem for him, and it might be that we see him put in a big turn, or an early attack in the services of Quintana and roll home around 15th. 

Miguel Angel Lopez is one who will be looking forward to this finish too though, he's one of the punchiest and fastest attackers who can make gap very quickly and hold a good pace for the last 2-3kms to hold the gap. It would be foolish of the others to let him go, but he might get a brief moment when Movistar look at LottoJumbo or Mitchelton Scott and they wait on someone else to take up the chasing and he'll be gone. He has time to make up, he needs to start making moves sooner rather than later I think, and he is capable of getting away and winning this stage. 

Simon Yates has to be considered a big danger to all of them though, the way he accelerated away on stage 4 and quickly got a large gap, without really trying too hard or intending to attack (so he says), was very impressive. Ok, he caught some of them by surprise with his attack, and there was a momentary lull for a little while amongst the other favourites to see who would take it up, but he did get a good gap very quickly and gained some valuable time.

The lull with the favourites saw Lopez and Buchmann take off after him, with Buchmann almost catching Yates, so he was closing him down very quickly. So was he really going that fast? Well he wasn't really going full gas though as I said, he was almost embarassed for his attack afterwards, and Buchmann closed a big gap down very quickly. We may not see Emanuel Buchmann going so well tomorrow though, he crashed Friday and is a bit battered after it, there were doubts for a while that he may not start on Saturday, but start he did and he even won our matchbet for us luckily. 

Lotto Jumbo have a number of strong cards to play too, with George Bennett ably supported by some real climbing power in Sepp Kuss, Steven Kruijswijk and Floris De Tier. We could see LJ as the ones to take it up to Movistar, and they could send a number of guys on the attack in the last 7 or 8kms to try to string things out for a late attack by Bennett. Steven Kruijswisk is riding extemely well at the moment, as born out by his 10th place in the sprint today.

He could be one for an early attack on the climb, he's riding so well he could get a gap and hold it. It's a sort of climb he'll like and if it is that Bennett is their no.1 GC man, we may see the team let SK have a go tomorrow so as to put the others under pressure.. If he hangs on, he gets a great stage victory, if not, Bennet or Kuss might be able to counter. But Bennett is usually outgunned by a number of others, I think he will again tomorrow. 

Rafal Majka - he's just 14/1, I presume that is because they either expect him to be in the break of the day, or to maybe try an attack from early in the climb in order to give Buchmann an easy ride.. But with Buchmann possibly riding in to Red tomorrow, if he is not too beaten up, then I think Majka will be sticking with him to look after him. And maybe even more so if he is feeling a little worse for wear after his crash. So I think I'll wait till later on in the race to look to back Majka.

If Emanuel Buchmann is feeling ok though, he could have a chance in an uphill sprint, he was very quick on the 3-5% gradients on stage 4, he could well be one to sit in, sit in, sit in and then pounce in the sprint.. if Valverde isn't there, he'd have a chance. 

Bauke Mollema at 16/1 is another for the break, but 16/1? He was 80/1 when we backed him the other day.. Too short for me now. Thibaut Pinot is tempting at 20/1 too though, he'll be livid after losing time unneccessarily a few stages ago, despite the calm response to the media. He will be able to handle this climb fine I think and he has a decent sprint on him in a reduced group. But will he be asked to look after Molard? I don't think so, he's had his fun, and in fact, he might be able to look after himself anyway. 

Rigoberto Uran has been looking sharp to me too, sprinting to 11th today and 6th yesterday, and 8th on Caminito Del Rey, he's been pretty impressive to me. We've seen him win sprint finishes from GC groups, and he might have an easy ride as the likes of Rolland, Woods or Moreno might be in the break or on the attack from the bottom of the climb. He's definitely one to watch at a big price of 33/1. 

Can Richie Porte find his legs and take off from these guys? He got a good days training in the legs a few stages ago by going in the break, maybe he's starting to feel better. With the GC long gone as an ambition, he'll need to win a stage to salvage something out of this race. He's well capable of going on 5-6% gradients, and if he takes off like he does on Willunga, they will find it very hard to catch him.. but Willunga is a lot shorter than this climb, it might be that he just keeps his powder dry tomorrow and look for a more suitable finish later in the race. 

Dan Martin won here the last time they came up, but he just isn't in the right sort of form it would seem to repeat what he did there. But Martin has a knack of pulling something out of the bag when you don't expect it, and I wouldn't be surprised if Dan has something up his sleeve and has been saving himself for a stage like this. His wife is expecting twins any day now, what better way to leave the race than with a win in the bag on a mountain that he has won on before.. write him off at your peril I think!

What about Wilko Kelderman? Will we see him on the attack in an attempt to take back time? It's possible, he needs to claw some back sooner or later, but I think he'll be happy to just see this one out and come home with his rivals and get better day by day. Fabio Aru, Ilnur Zakarin, Omar Fraile, Alessandro de Marchi, Nico Roche, Jesus Herrada, Richard Carapaz and the two Izagirre's could go well also tomorrow, Ion in particular looked strong in the finish today, a sprint like that tomorrow could see him go close too. 

Another wide open stage with loads of potential winners and potential ways to win it. I think it will be a GC day though, I think they will reel in the break and we'll see a gradual whittling down process as first Movistar and then Lotto Jumbo take it up. There are three guys who can win it by attacking the GC group in the closing kilometres and they are Lopez, Yates and Quintana, and out of those three, Lopez is the one I like the most. 

I think he can attack multiple times and break the others, if Yates and Quintana go with him, he can break them one by one with multiple surges.. He can also sprint better than both of them, so he's my favourite for the stage. I also like Dan Martin and Uran at those prices though, but Bennett, Kruijswijk and Pinot won't be far behind, and Ion Izagirre might go close too at a tasty 80/1.  

Recommendations:

1pt win on Miguel Angel Lopez at 13/2 with 365

0.5pts e/w on Dan Martin at 25/1 with 365 (the 33/1 was taken as I wrote this)

0.3pts e/w on Rigo Uran at 33/1

0.25pts e/w on Ion Izagirre at 80/1

Matchbets:

Mas to beat Aru and De La Cruz to beat Gallopin - 2pts at evens

Uran to beat Pinot - 2pts at 5/6

Lopez to beat Valverde - 2.2pts at 10/11 with Will Hill