Details

Published on Tuesday, 26 August 2014 22:56

Vuelta a España St. 5

Priego de Córdoba to Ronda

Wednesday August 27th, 180km

Stage 5 sees them head back down to the south-east corner of Spain as they leave Priego de Córdoba and pass through the Parque Natural Sierras Subbéticas heading in a south-west direction to the finish in Ronda. Ronda is a spectacularly beautiful city, perched on the edge of a cliff, one of Spain's most important tourist destination. The city that's known as 'The cradle of Bullfighting' will see a fight on the roads today. 

As predicted today Nacer Bouhanni did not make it to the finish, the climb was too tough for him.. John Degenkolb was brilliant and destroyed the 50 or so riders that came to the finish together.

Matthews did the business again today on stage 4 to snatch 3rd, and although Contador won his match-bet, the other bets dragged us to our first losing day, losing 2.66pts. Good news for the Matthews 50/1 for the points jersey bet though, he claimed the jersey today and now leads the competition (but on the same points as Degenkolb). He is now in to 9/2 second favourite behind 3/1 Quintana. 

Dan Martin also showed what great legs he has at the moment by sprinting to 5th place, but Reynes, Caruso and Mondory also showed great form to take top 10 places. Julian Arredondo lost over 10 minutes today, Sagan over 13 minutes and Pinot over 16 minutes, he clearly hasn't recovered from his fever. 

The Route

The stage is pretty non-descript when you look at it on the map, it looks like a pretty flat profile for about the first 150kms, but in fact it is quite a rolling profile which sees them go over plenty little lumps all along the way and take in two intermediate sprints at the 55km and 121.5km marks.

After 151kms they hit the only real obstacle of the day in the Puerto El Saltillo, a 3rd Cat climb which drags on for 12.4kms at a leisurely average of just 3.3%. There's only 15kms to go from the top of the climb so we should see plenty of attacks from hopefuls at the top of the climb as there are just 15kms of a downhill run to the finish left. 

The last few kilometres are quite tricky with a loop around the town offering plenty of sharp turns and obstacles, including two 45º turns inslide the last 2kms which could cause carnage. The final 800m breaks the downhill run and actually climbs to the line at a gentle 1.3%. 

Contenders and Favourites

It's hard to imagine this being anything other than another sprint finish, but then again, the profile lends itself to a long range break of the day from some strong hopefuls. 

This looks like a stage tailor made for John Degenkolb and it is a perfect stage for him to double up after his wonderful win in stage 4. He is probably the second fastest man in the race as we saw on Sunday when he chased home Bouhanni, the fastest man on a flat, straight sprint.  That Cat 3 climb should be no problem to him and even the uphill finish should suit him ok too as it is only 1.3%.

Even though the stage profile on stage 2 said the finish was flat to downhill they were actually sprinting uphil at the end of the stage. It's annoying to not have that exact information available, but the information in general has been pretty awful from the Spanish organizers. Very little information on the climbs, the gradients, the exact markings for distances on maps inside the last 5kms etc. that are readily available for most other races..  Take the map above for example, in the 'Last kms' tab - hard to know where the Flamme Rouge,  the 2km to go, 3km to go marks are etc. 

The big questions of the day are can the sprinters get over the final climb? It's not the hardest climb in the world but it is long - the official start is at the 152.3km mark, making it a 12.5km climb, but actually they climb for probably another 10km before the start so it's closer to 22-23kms. That could be a bit much for Bouhanni, as we saw today, a fast climb over a longer distance can undo him, as I suspected it might. He might be able to hang in tomorrow as it is not as steep but I'm not prepared to take a chance on him at just 7/4. 

Michael Matthews is sure to be there again, he is flying at the moment, but at 6/1 I think he is only sprinting for place money again though as Degenkolb should beat him again. So the 1/4 of 6/1 doesn't appeal as much today. After that, it's a lottery to be honest and I'm not all that keen on guessing as the likes of Mondory, Gatto, Reynes, Kolobnev, Debusschere could all finish in 3rd or 53rd.. The only other sort of rider that appeals to me would be someone like Tony Martin attacking once over the top as it's only 15kms or so to the finish and he could make it. He's 66/1 if you fancy it!

There aren't really any of the match bets that appeal to me right now, except maybe Degenkolb to beat Bouhanni at 8/11 given I think he'll win the stage. Tomorrow's stage could be an anything finish really, very hard to call who will finish in front of who. A day to take it small tomorrow and keep the powder dry until Thursday. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on John Degenkolb at 9/4 with Paddy Power.  

Match Bets 

2pts on Degenkolb to beat Bouhanni at 8/11 at Bet365 

<< Back to Stage 4

Stage 6 Preview >>