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Published on Tuesday, 23 September 2014 20:46

World's Individual Time Trial

Ponferrada, Spain.

Wednesday 23rd September, 47.1kms

The opening two days of Time Trialling has seen BMC crowned top dogs in the Team Time Trial, Lulu-Lemon take the Womens Title and Campbell Flakemore deny Ireland's Ryan Mullen by less than a half a second in the U23 Individual Title. The Programme moves on to the Junior TTs on Tuesday and the Elite Men's TT on Wednesday. 

The rain has played its part in the races so far with the Rabo-Liv ladies team crashing on Sunday and BMC getting out before the weather worsened in the afternoon and the U23 races today being mostly run in very wet and slippy conditions. 

The forecast is for thunderstorms in the early afternoon around 1pm and then a break for an hour before more thunderstorms around 3pm local time. It should mean that the roads should be wet for most of the afternoon and it could be dangerous for some. 

TT Route

The course uses a lot of the road as used in the Team Time Trial so some of the riders will have some experience of the roads. The first 30kms are pretty flat and this is where the power engines like Tony Martin can make up big time. The first 15kms are ridden on the TTT course, but as they hit the 15km marker and the first checkpoint they carry straight on instead of turning left. The second time check comes after 23kms and the next 10kms or so are also on the TTT course. 

In the TTT they turned right on to the final desent, but here they go straight on to take on the hilly final section of the course. Two climbs come in quick succession, with a sharp, twisty descent in between them. The first climb is pretty easy, and most will be able to still really keep the power down. After the descent, the final climb sees them climb for 2.2kms at an average of 5%, but when they get over the top there are less than 5kms to go. The final 3kms were used on the TTT and they will descend still until there are just 1.5kms to go, with the final 1.5kms more or less totally flat. 

There are two ways that a rider can win or lose this race. Some will like the hilly final part, others won't. Some will like the flat opening section and make up big time, others will struggle. The weather could affect times and it will take a strong all-rounder to be able to come out on top here. 

Contenders and Favourites

This is a no-brainer right? It's a mortgage job right? Unload the wheelbarrow of cash on the Panzerwagen yeah? It certainly looks like it could be the easiest 40% return you'll make on your money this year for sure.. Three times world TT champion Tony Martin has been his usual dominant self this year, winning the Time Trials in the Vuelta, Tour de France, Tour de Suisse, Tour of Belgium, Pais Vasco and the German Nationals.

He is the hot favourite for this again, generally 1/3 but as 'big' as 2/5 with Paddy Power - the bookies aren't taking any chances..  Any I can't blame them. 2/5 means there is a 71% chance that Martin will win tomorrow and you have to think that is pretty close to the reality. The course should suit him for most of it, particularly the first 30kms where he will be able to build up a big advantage on the rolling but mostly flat open roads. 

It starts climbing gently from about 25kms in but gets steeper after about 32kms on the first of the two climbs. The climbs aren'y too difficult though and we have seen plenty of evidence this year that Martin has improved his climbing. He will lose some time to the better climbers on the latter part of the course but you'd think he'll have built up enough of a buffer to hold them off. He has the downhill/flat last 4kms though as well to put the hammer down and gain time again, pushing his 56x11 or whatever monster gear he chooses tomorrow.

What can beat him? Well, there's something important to keep an eye on and that's the weather. He starts at 15:36 and there are showers expected between 3 and 4pm.. it should take him just under an hour I reckon so he should see some showers along the way. Of the 29% chance that he will not win this is probably about a 3% chance of a crash or a mechanical. There's talk he isn't at he absolute best, the 3rd place in the TTT for OPQS might be a sign of that, considering how much influence he has on that team's results, but even Martin at 95% will be too good for most of these. 

Looking at his competitors then and top of the list of big rivals is of course Brad Wiggins. Sir Brad has come to form at just the right time with a powerful time trialling display in the TOB around the streets of London. He rode well all week really and several of the pros were apparently very impressed by his shape and form in the TOB. That was of course over a very different course and distance to this one but it still showed that he is in form and motivated, something you can't always rely on with Wiggins. 

2nd last year on a very flat course, 2nd in 2011, he has never really came close to Martin though, 46" last year was the closest, despite being 2nd. Wiggins should go well on the opening part of the course and should do better than Martin on the hills in the second part. I think that he will be the closest to Martin, and if Martin has a really bad day he could pull it off. I can't back him at just 7/2 though, and 1/4 for the top 3 is too short to risk a bike mechanical or a crash on the tight roads off the first climb, especially if it's wet.

Tom Dumoulin is a big favourite of mine, I think he's a tremendous rider and one I have had some good success on in the past. It's going to be a big ask for him tomorrow though to beat the time trialling royalty above him in the betting, but he is sure to put in a big showing again. 5/6 with Bet365 to finish in the top 3, 14/1 with 888Sport to win it outright, he is sure to have some supporters tomorrow hoping he will upset the odds. In all his big results this year nearly, bar one, he has finished in 2nd behind Martin! He did win the TT in the Eneco Tour but that was over only 9kms, this is a far longer, far harder test and I think he will find this tough going tomorrow against Martin and Wiggins. 

Adriano Malori did great for me in the final TT of the Vuelta, landing the odds at 3/1 beating Jesse Sergent and Rohan Dennis by 8 and 9 seconds. 8th last year, 2'51" behind Martin, his best results seem to have come over much shorter distances than this and he too will have a big task on his hands to get on the top steps of the podium. 

Rohan Dennis finished the Vuelta well and carried his form in to the TTT last Sunday when he was the driving force in BMC's surprise win. He was still at the front driving them home on the finishing straight and he looked very strong indeed. 12th last year in this and 2nd in the U23 version the year before, he is a quality time triallist who has had his fair share of 2nd places in his career. At a huge 50/1 to win it, he is a pretty awful 5/2 to just come in the top 3.. I fancy him to come close but not at that price.  

Jesse Sergent and Kristof Vandewalle should go well, as should Sylvain Chavanel, Ludvigsson, Kiryienka and Quaade from Denmark, but I think they are all scrapping for the top 10 but not the first 5 places. 

So it's a bit of a strange one for me, no bets appeal to me really from an outright point of view. I think Martin wins from Wiggins, with Dumoulin, Dennis and Malori scrapping it out for bronze, with a small preference for Dumoulin at 5/6.

Recommendations:

No bet, Dumoulin at 5/6 is about the only bet that appeals to me.  

Match Bets

Sylvain Chavanel to beat Svein Tuft - 1pt @ 8/11 with Bet365

Serry to beat Coppel - 1pt @ 5/6

Martin to beat Wiggins, Dumoulin to beat Kiryienka, Van Garderen to beat Dowsett, Dennis to beat Malori - 1pt @ 2.67/1 with Bet365 

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Riders Start Times

Time Rider Team 

13:30:00 POPSTEFANOV Gorgi FORMER REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
13:32:00 NECHITA Andrei ROMANIA
13:34:00 LUDVIGSSON Tobias SWEDEN
13:36:00 MINO Gustavo PARAGUAY
13:38:00 PLIUSCHIN Alexandr REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA
13:40:00 SARAMOTINS Aleksejs LATVIA
13:42:00 FEJES Gabor HUNGARY
13:44:00 ASADOV Elchin AZERBAIJAN
13:46:00 KANGERT Tanel ESTONIA
13:48:00 DYACHENKO Alexsandr KAZAKHSTAN
13:50:00 VASYLYUK Andriy UKRAINE
13:52:00 SADIKI Veli FORMER REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
13:54:00 OVECHKIN Artem RUSSIAN FEDERATION
13:56:00 VAKOC Petr CZECH REPUBLIC
13:58:00 MOHORIC Matej SLOVENIA
14:00:00 BREEN Vegard NORWAY
14:02:00 OLIVEIRA Nelson PORTUGAL
14:04:00 TACIAK Mateusz POLAND
14:06:00 ARNDT Nikias GERMANY
14:08:00 ANACONA GOMEZ Winner COLOMBIA
14:10:00 COPPEL Jerome FRANCE
14:12:00 GINGSJO Alexander SWEDEN
14:14:00 SMUKULIS Gatis LATVIA
14:16:00 DER Zsolt HUNGARY
14:18:00 TAARAMAE Rein ESTONIA
14:20:00 GOLOVASH Oleksandr UKRAINE
14:22:00 KONOVALOVAS Ignatas LITHUANIA
14:24:00 TEUTENBERG Lars GERMANY
14:26:00 TVETCOV Serghei ROMANIA
14:28:00 KOREN Kristijan SLOVENIA
14:30:00 MACHADO Tiago PORTUGAL
14:32:00 SERRY Pieter BELGIUM
14:34:00 OYARZUN GUINEZ Carlos Ivan CHILE
14:36:00 ROCHE Nicolas IRELAND
14:38:00 NAVARRETE Segundo ECUADOR
14:40:00 ZOIDL Riccardo AUSTRIA
14:42:00 SEPULVEDA Eduardo ARGENTINA
14:44:00 FOMINYKH Daniil KAZAKHSTAN
14:46:00 VOROBYEV Anton RUSSIAN FEDERATION
14:48:00 IRIZAR ARANBURU Markel SPAIN
14:50:00 BORGERSEN Reidar Bohlin NORWAY
14:52:00 DILLIER Silvan SWITZERLAND
14:54:00 NAVARDAUSKAS Ramunas LITHUANIA
14:56:00 SIUTSOU Kanstantsin BELARUS
14:58:00 HANSEN Lasse Norman DENMARK
15:00:00 TALANSKY Andrew UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
15:02:00 CATALDO Dario ITALY
15:04:00 BRANDLE Matthias AUSTRIA
15:06:00 CASTROVIEJO NICOLAS Jonathan SPAIN
15:08:00 TUFT Svein CANADA
15:10:00 QUAADE Rasmus Christian DENMARK
15:12:00 VANDEWALLE Kristof BELGIUM
15:14:00 BODNAR Maciej POLAND
15:16:00 CHAVANEL Sylvain FRANCE
15:18:00 DOWSETT Alex GREAT BRITAIN
15:20:00 SERGENT Jesse NEW-ZEALAND
15:22:00 VAN GARDEREN Tejay UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
15:24:00 BARTA Jan CZECH REPUBLIC
15:26:00 KIRYIENKA Vasil BELARUS
15:28:00 DENNIS Rohan AUSTRALIA
15:30:00 MALORI Adriano ITALY
15:32:00 DUMOULIN Tom NETHERLANDS
15:34:00 WIGGINS Bradley GREAT BRITAIN
15:36:00 MARTIN Tony GERMANY

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