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Published on Sunday, 25 August 2013 00:16

Vuelta Stage 2 Preview

Stage 2 - Pontevedra to Baiona. Alto Do Monte Da Groba, 177.7km

What a storming start to the Vuelta for Astana and Nibali, roaring to a 10 second victory over a Cancellara-led Radioshack Leopard-Trek in second and the pre-race favourites Omega Pharma Quick Step. Janez Brajkovic wears the leaders red jersey going in to stage 2 after crossing the line first of the Astana riders left at the finish.

Nibali has already made some significant time on his main rivals - Henao and Uran are now the closest, 22" back after Sky took 4th place; Valverde has conceded 29" after Movistar finished 5th and Rodriguez has lost a massive 58" already after Katusha struggled in in 12th place.

Stage 2 skirts along the coast for 50km and almost reaches the finish at Baiona before turning inland to take in the Cat 3 Alto de San Cosme and the Sprint point at Ponteareas. They then head back south west towards the coast again, turning north at another Sprint spot at A Guarda and hugs the coastline for 40kms before tackling the hard summit finish up to Alto do Monte da Groba. 

The stage looks made for an early breakaway, with lots of fresh riders looking to get away before the summit finish. Expect fireworks once the GC leaders hit the final climb though, but will they be close enough to a break to reel them in? The climb is not particularly difficult on paper, but with the pace high this early in the race expect some time gaps, possibly some significant ones if riders haven't found their legs yet. 11kms long at an average gradient of 5.6% (max of 10%) should stretch things out. As the old cliche goes, we may not see who will win the Vuelta, but we could see who might not win it.

I think we will see the likes of Euskaltel, Lotto-Belisol (someone like Hansen), Caja Rural, FDJ, Cofidis or Katusha sending guys up the road early on in a bid for early glory and TV coverage. They could stretch their gap to 8 or 9 minutes pretty quickly given the right tailwind conditions, but I expect Movistar, Astana, Sky and BMC etc to start to control it soon after and bring the gap down quickly. If there is less than 2 minutes to the leaders going in to the final climb then they will be caught and the GC protagonists will battle it out.

The shift from the big ring after several hours of fast racing to the small ring suddenly for the last climb is really going to hurt some and there could be some surprise casualties this early.

If it does come down to a GC Square-Up then, how do I see it panning out?

I expect the Colombians to light it up pretty early on. Uran may look to shake it up for Henao later on to strike. Betancourt is sure to be in the mix and they may well play the Pozzovivo/Bentancourt 1-2 also. Nibali I think will just need to watch and cover now he has that time gap, but it will be interesting to see what way his legs are going to be given his recent races, but I think he will not be going out all guns blazing, rather looking to just cover and conserve. Same could have been said for Valverde and Purito were it not for the time they lost in the TTT, so they might now feel under pressure to go out and try to regain the lost time quickly. But I think Purito is too experienced to panic like that, he knows there is three weeks of hard racing ahead.

If it comes to it that there are 8-10 still together in the last few kilometers, we may see Purito going for it, but he is pretty short at 3/1.. There isn't much in it between him and Valverde, who is best price 11/4. Daniel Martin could well be there or thereabouts too, this kind of finish should suit him, a long fast day with a hard climb at the end, but he is also quite short at just 16/1. One who I like at a decent price though is Daniel Moreno - he could well be sent up the road on a probing attack in the last few kilometers and may just get the leeway to take the stage if the GC favourites start looking at each other. At 33/1 he is a nice price for an each-way bet with BetVictor or Bet365.

Rodriguez should be backed too as a 'saver' at 3/1, with a small interest each way on Dan Martin at 16/1 with William Hill.