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Published on Tuesday, 11 October 2016 20:36

2016 World ITT Championships

Wed 12th October

So after the snoozefest that was the Team Time Trial on Sunday afternoon, we move on to the Individual Time trials this week. First up are the Women's Junior Time Trial and the Mens U23 TT on Monday, followed by the Men's Junior TT and Women's Elite TT on Tuesday and the Elite Men's TT on Wednesday.

Last year saw a massive surprise in the Elite TT, with Vasil Kiryienka taking gold at a huge 66/1, leading home a trio of outsiders, with our 22/1 shot Adriano Malori just 9" back in 2nd and 100/1 shot Jerome Coppel in 3rd. It was a disaster for favourite backers, as even money favourite Tony Martin finished way down in 7th place, 1'16" behind Kiryienka, and Rohan Dennis, who had been backed from 10/1 in to 5/1 finished only 6th on the day. Tom Dumoulin had been suffering from a saddle sore but he still rolled home in 5th place, a minute down on Kiryienka. 

Malori put in a brilliant ride and saved the day for us as we had him each-way at 22/1 and also at 9/4 to finish in the top 3. Unfortunately for Malori he won't be here this year to try to go one better, he has had a horror year, with first a horrible crash in the Tour de San Luis, right at the start of the season which kept him out for almost the whole season. He came back in Quebec at the start of September and suffered more misfortune with a crash in Milano-Torino which broke his collar bone. 

The competition is pretty hot again of course, with Dumoulin, Dennis and Martin all showing good flashes of form in recent weeks. Of course there is no Cancellara after he retired after his final big win in the Olympics TT, but there are lots of other guys on the fringes who could pull off a 'Kiryienka' or 'Malori' surprise this year. 

The course is nothing exciting - flat, boring, city landscape with lots of roundabouts and turns as we saw in the TTT on Sunday. Some riders will have had a taster with the Team Time Trial, whereas others will have been here before for the Tour of Qatar so will know about the wind and the heat. The wind shouldn't be too much of a problem though, at least not at the moment, it's looking like it wil just be pretty calm and very warm. 

The TTT was a disaster betting-wise, with Etixx pulling off a stunning ride to smash BMC by 11", at an average speed of 56.43kmph, which was over 1kmph faster than last year's win by BMC. And just to rub salt in the wounds, Lotto lost out to Sky in their H2H by a half a bloody second! There was a good ride by Orica in 3rd place, but it was a disaster for Movistar who suffered a mechanical for Castroviejo after just 2kms, and a subsequent bike change which cost them 45". 

Just as well that we had a good result in Paris Tours in the afternoon, with Fernando Gaviria pulling off a sensational win, attacking the other sprinters with a full 600m to go.. It was an amazing attack to sprint away from the rest like that and hold it all the way to the line. Matt Stephens on the commentary was calling it as Richeze all the way to the line, which had me cursing Etixx for the second time in an hour.. But it was indeed Gaviria, and landed a nice result for us to cover all the losers on the TTT.

Cavendish was poor, as was Bouhanni, Arnaud Démare came out best of the top sprinters, chasing home Gaviria and nearly catching him. Démare was left ruing the fact that he was on Gaviria's wheel but let him go as he thought that it was too far out to go.. He said he felt really strong, and will be one to watch next Sunday in Doha too.. 

The Routes

The Elite Women, U23 Men and Junior Men & Women will compete for Individual Time Trial championships on a technical course that winds its way around the Pearl Qatar over 28.9kms. The Elite men will compete over an extended course that starts in the north-west at the Lusail Sports Complex, the same route that was covered in the TTT on Sunday, so some riders will have had first hand experience of the course already. 

The course for all bar the Elite men consists of a twisty jaunt around the Pearl, twice. The first time, on the way out they they ride along the inner, purple line and once they pass the finish line for the first time they take to the outer circuit, which is then almost exactly the same for the rest of the race, just at the other side of the road. 

There are plenty of roundabouts, tight bends and lots of long gently arcing bends also. Long straights are few and far between, so the extremely powerful, diesel engine riders will be at a slight disadvantage over the punchier, quicker acceleraters. Most of the roundabouts are on pretty wide roads though, so even though they will be an inconvenience, it won't slow them down a great deal. 

The circuit is so flat there isn't even any point in adding a profile, just imagine a flat line and there you have it. 

Contenders and Favourites

Elite Mens Individual Time Trial

This could be a pretty tight contest this year. The bookies have made Dennis and Martin almost joint favourites, with Dennis slightly shading favouritism at 13/8, with Martin at 15/8. It is that hard to split the top two, they seem to think. 

I took a chance on Rohan Dennis last year, and he disappointed along with the rest of the favourites, finishing in 6th, over a minute down on Kiry. He has been in great form this year though, and seemed to be peaking towards the end of the season, as was evident in his strong ride at the TOB. He finished 2nd on the tough climb up to Haytor, then the next day he finished 2nd in the morning TT, and pulled off a superb ride in the afternoon to hold off the sprinters and take the stage. 

He was in great form at the Eneco Tour too, winning the ITT, the TTT and was leading the race on the final stage but unfortunately crashed out. He had a good sighter of the course on the TTT with BMC and will not be expected to work in the road race, so he is free to bury himself to try to win the prized rainbow stripes. I don't think the Eneco crash will hamper him at all and he should be right up there at the top of the leaderboard at the end of the day. He will be disapppointed that BMC lost their crown in the TTT on Sunday and will be out to make up for that, but was he a contributing factor to their defeat? Was he not at 100%? Well after the TTT on Sunday he remarked "For Wednesday? Just look at the Eneco Tour, I'm in great shape!” So plenty of confidence there.  

Tony Martin has had a funny old year - he has been pretty disappointing in the main in time trials this year, as some were suggesting that he just didn't have the power any more.. (including me at times). Up until the Tour of Britain TT he hadn't won a single TT all year, something that is pretty abnormal for TM. He was beaten in various races over short and long distances and in the Tour de France TT over 37kms he finished two minutes behind Dumoulin. He was also pretty disappointing in the Olympics TT, finishing way down in 12th place, 3'18" behind Cancellara.. Over three minutes down! 

Then he went to the Tour of Britain and beat Rohan Dennis and Tom Dumoulin over a 15km TT in Bristol. It was a bit of a shock to see him turn over Dumoulin and Dennis, but then, less than two weeks later at the Eneco TT he carried on his disappointing run of results, finishing 12th in the TT, even being beaten by Marcel Kittel. Ok, that was over just 9.6kms and it takes him a while to get his diesel engine running sometimes, but the TOB TT was only 5.4kms longer, not much more.

It's hard to know what sort of performance Martin will put in - he was obviously very strong in the TTT with Etixx and is now World Champion again, so it looks like he is going well in Doha.. Will he be tired after that effort and will he be able to give 100% again so soon? The heat will have had a big impact on their bodies, there were a lot of very exhausted riders scattered around the place on Sunday. He will also be needed to support André Greipel in the road race on Sunday, so it's hard to know how much in to the red he'll be able to put himself here. He is a three-time World Champion though don't forget, so it's unlikely he'll be pottering around. 

Tom Dumoulin has had a mixed year too on the TT bike, he seems to have slimmed down an awful lot in order to make himself a better climber, he is actually incredibly thin in person, far thinner than I expected him to be.. I always had the impression of he being quite a strong, stocky character, but he is just skin and bones, like Froome (right)...

Has it hampered his burgeoning ability as a time-triallist? Possibly - he has had some mixed results this year, being well beaten in some TTs (like the 2nd Giro TT and in the Eneco), but also has some great results to his name, like TT wins in the Giro and the Tour de France. 

2nd in the Olympics, the second TDF TT and the Tour of Romandie, 3rd in the TOB behind Martin and Dennis, he has been in the frame a lot this year, as well as pulling off some great rides on the road, such as his stage win to Andorra in the TDF. The TOB result and the Eneco result worry me, it's almost like he did peak for the TDF and the Olympics and has tailed off a bit since then.

He will have been disappointed with the TTT result, to lose almost a minute and a half to Etixx, but that was a pretty weak looking team apart from Tom. Will he be able to pick himself up once more for the final TT of the season? Possibly, he is a pretty strong top 3 candidate, but at the price I don't think I want to be backing him. 

Jos Van Emden is option no. 2 for Holland here, and he too has a chance of pulling off a big ride. 2nd in the Eneco TT over 9.6kms to Dennis, he beat a lot of key rivals that day, including Roglc, Brandle and Tony Martin, and beat his Dutch team-mate by 15". 2nd also to Dumoulin in the Dutch TT championships over 50kms, he was the only rider to finish less than a minute behind Dumoulin, only conceding 34". 

He seems to go well on flat courses, but how does he cope with the heat of Qatar? Well, he finished 2nd in the TT in Lusail in the Tour of Qatar back in February, although it could be argued that he shouldn't really have been beaten by Edvald Boasson Hagen and he only beat a bunch of sprinters.. He should top ten, but I think he will have to be on an extraordinary ride to break the top 3. 

Riegning World Champion Vasil Kiryienka has had a very disappointing year by his standards, with 3rd place in Valenciana on the 3rd February last year his best result of the season in TTs. They have mostly been dreadfully disappointing from the man in the rainbow stripes, and none more so than his farcical TT in the Eneco Tour, when he turned up 40" late to the start rolled down the ramp, pulled out his bottle and smashed it against barriers. He proceeded to roll around the course as casually as you like and finished in 121st place. Amazingly, he still managed to beat some 50 riders home, even when going half-gas. 

He hasn't even come close to winning a race this year, or hasn't even looked all that powerful at times at the front on the climbs for Sky, he has looked uninterested at times to me. So how on earth can we back him at just 5/1 after all that? Given the season he's had, he should be closer to the 66/1 he was last year, not 3rd favourite at single digit prices. Also, in ten years as a pro, he has only once gone out to the middle-east to race, and that was in the 2013 Tour of Oman, where he finished 133rd. I'm not sure he likes the heat all that much either. 

Primoz Roglic is a funny one. There was nothing on his palmares to suggest he was an exceptional time triallist, with no result of note up until the Giro this year. 24th in the TT in the Algarve, 30th in Tirreno, then BANG-BANG. 2nd in the opening 10km TT in the Giro, pipped by hundreths of a second by Dumoulin, then 1st in the 2nd TT over 40kms. He beat Brandle by 10", but beat Cancellara by 28" and Van Emden by 1'08", a truly stunning ride by the Slovak.

He won the Slovak TT championships, but was only 10th in the Olympics TT, nearly 2 minutes behind Dumoulin. 7th in the Euros, you know it isn't a great ride when Nico Roche finishes just 7" behind you!  He was part of the TTT team on Sunday that finished in 5th, it was a good ride by Lotto, but not good enough to beat Sky, and were just 18" off the podium, a pretty strong ride. I think he'll struggle to break podium here though with the heat. 

Jonathan Castroviejo had a disaster in the TTT on Sunday, suffering a mechanical and a bike change that possibly cost Movistar a bronze medal. Castroviejo has been in great form on the TT bike this year though, recently winning the European title by 30" from Campanaerts. It wasn't exactly a field of the the quality of the World's, with no Martin, Dennis or Dumoulin there, but it will still be a good confidence booster for him to have won by such a margin. 

He was also a good 4th in the Olympics, this time beating Dennis by 4" and finishing only 4" behind behind Froome. 2nd in the Vuelta TT to Froome, 2nd in Poland and 6th in the Algarve and Suisse, he has not been outside the top 6 in any TT he has ridden this year. In fact, if you go back to last year too, he has only finished outside the top 6 in one TT - and that was a 7th place in the Tour de Romandie. 4th in the World's last year, just 3" off of a bronze medal, he will be going all out to make up for that and his mechanical in the TTT which could have cost his team-mates a bronze, not that it was likely to have been his fault.. 

Matthias Brandle has had a mixed year this year, with some very good (2nd in the Giro TT) and some pretty average TT results (21st in the Euros, 18th and 23rd in the two TTs in the TDS). He is the Austrian TT (and road) champion though so you'd expect him to put in a big showing, but I've a feeling he might have to settle for a place in the teens like last year when he was just 16th. 

Taylor Phinney finishes his time with BMC here at the World's before moving on to Cannondale next season - what can we expect from the American? I think if he had not got injured he would be right up there with the favourites for this, as he was one of the best up-and-coming time triallists. U23 World Champion in 2010, ahead of Luke Durbridge and Marcel Kittel, 2nd in the Elite World's in 2012, just 6" behind Tony Martin (the rider in 3rd, Kiryienka, was 1'39" back on Phinney!), he also took 3rd in the Chrono des Nations shortly after that. 

In 2014 he had finished 2nd, 1st, 12th, 1st and 3rd in TTs at the start of the season, then won the US Nationals, before crashing out in the road race, a crash that almost ended his career at the age of 24. He made his comeback in August 2015 and in his first TT back in the US Pro Challenge, he finished 6th, as well as winning a stage with a solo attack. He took 12th in the World's TT too. He comfortably won the US TT title this year (by 1'10"), but that wasn't exactly a stellar lineup of TT stars, but finished a disappointing 22nd in the Olympics TT. 7th in the Eneco Tour TT, I think he will do well to finish in the 5th to 10th bracket, but can't see him higher than that I think. 

Nelson Oliveira and Alex Dowsett are two Movistar riders who could go well here too and will be desperate to make up for the disappointment of the TTT too. Dowsett has had a good few top 10s this year in TTs, including wins in Poland and in the British Nationals, but when he has raced against the really big guys in recent times he hasn't really been able to match their pace. Nelson Oliveira is the current Portugese TT champion and has had some good results this year, including 3rd in the 37km TT in the Tour de France behind Dumoulin and Froome, and was 7th in the Olympics, but generally he's a 5th to 10th kind of guy too. 

Maciej Bodnar and Marcin Bialblocki are a strong duo representing Poland here and both can pull off good performances I think after finishing 1st and 2nd in the Polish TT Nationals this year. Bodnar has been known to pull off great rides, including 6th in the Olympics and a win in the 3 days of De Panne, where he beat Tony Martin by hundredths of a second. In the 37km TT in the Tour he was 12th, some 2'32" behind Dumoulin, and I think a 10th - 15th place finish is what we can expect from him again here. Bialblocki is another powerhouse who will like the flat course and the distance, but won't like the heat so much and I don't think he's in the same league as the top guys here. 

Bob Jungels is the sole representative from Luxembourg, and the young Etixx man is already a world champion this week after victory in the TTT. He's had a number of decent results this year, including a 3rd in Romandie, and a 6th and 9th in the Giro TTs. He had a really poor run in the Euro's though (27th) and the Eneco TT (34th) and those two results in the last few weeks puts me off him for this. 

Ryan Mullen was the hot favourite for the U23 TT last year but the rain came just as he was about to set off and he put in a poor ride in the end to finish way off the podium. This flat course should suit him down to the ground, but the heat will be against him. I think he's capable of a top 15 though, he put in a good ride recently in the TOB, taking 9th place. Nico Roche pulled off a great TT for him in the Euros recently finishing 8th, and rode well in the TTT Sunday to take 4th with Sky. He won't be breaking the top 10 here though. 

Victor Campanaerts, Luke Durbridge, Yves Lampaert - all can go ok too, but won't be worrying the podium. 

So who wins it then?? Something to bear in mind when trying to pick a winner though was something that the Etixx team mentioned after their win on Sunday.. They had prepared meticulously for it, mapping out the roundabouts with cones and practicing them over and over again. Niki Terpstra said that he must have gone through 500 roundabouts in preparation for it and as a result they were able to fly through the roundabouts at full gas and not ease off at all. 

Now Tony Martin is an experienced rider and knows very well how to take a roundabout at speed, but any little extra practice on such a technical sort of course surely can't harm him, it certainly seemed to work for them on Sunday. Were BMC as prepared? Maybe not, they seemed a bit ragged on some of the later bends. Of course, it's a lot different doing roundabouts on your own than with a team of 6 guys, but as this race could be won by small margins, it might just make the difference. 

Another thing to know about Martin is how he has reverted back to his old TT position, which netted him three World Titles already. He changed his position in 2015 and since then his results were pretty disappointing. At the TOB, he returned to his old position and duly stormed to victory. He is a master at flat, power courses, and I think the renewed confidence following the TTT win, which backs up his decision to revert to his old position might just swing it for him. Small stakes though as it could be really tight.. 

Dennis is confident, but will it be enough? Well he could have won a bronze medal, at least, in the Olympics only for a late problem with a handlebar break and a bike change which cost him a lot of time. That was very disappointing for him as he had based his season around it, even to the extent that he had not intended to go to the World's. But the disappointment of losing out there spurred him on and since then he has been in superb form.

The distance might be his undoing though, his best results have come over shorter distances. I am not all that hopeful of a win for Dumoulin, he looks tired after a long and hard season, and I think Kiryienka is a terrible price to retain his crown. Instead, the little bit of value I like is Jos Van Emden at 50/1 with Skybet, I think he could go close, and at that price he's worth a small interest, with Jonathan Castroviejo another who can finish in the top 5 and maybe even nick a podium spot. 

Recommendations 

2pts win on Tony Martin at 2/1 with Coral

0.3pts each-way on Jos Van Emden at 50/1 with Skybet 

0.3pts each-way on Jonathan Castoviejo at 20/1 with Paddy Power

Matchbets

Nelson Oliveira to beat Victor Campanaerts - 2pts at 5/6 with Bet365

Jos Van Emden to beat Marcin Bialablocki - 2pts at 13/8 with Bet365

Ryan Mullen to beat Gatis Smukulis - 2pts at 11/8 with Bet365

Kung to beat Grivko, Phinney to beat Cummings, Castroviejo to beat Bodnar - 2pts on the treble at 1.9/1 with Bet365