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Published on Thursday, 18 September 2014 00:26

World Championship Team Time Trial

Ponferrada, Spain.

Sunday 21st - Sunday 28th September

The world Championships of 2014 kick off on Sunday the 21st with the Women's Team Time Trial at 10am local time. That's followed at 2pm by the Men's Team Time Trial over 57.1kms, an event that has been only been going for two years and has been won both times by Omega Pharma Quick Step. 

Ponferrada in the Castile y Leon region of north-west Spain is the venue for this year's Road World Championships. Surrounded by mountains and renowned for its Templar castle, the ancient city and its hinterland is a suitably dramatic background for what will prove to be an exciting week of racing.

On the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, the city will become a nexus for the road racing faithful. The road and time trial routes finish on the Avenue de Asturias, named after Ponferrada’s founders. And on Sunday the 21st the god of time trials will try to lead his followers to a third victory in a row in the Team Time Trial.

The TTT is an unusual event in the World's Schedule in that the teams are the trade teams and not the national teams. The national anthem of each winning team member is played on the podium, making for a long presentation ceremony on a mixed team! Winners don't get a rainbow jersey, but every member of the winning squad, regardless of whether they were in the winning team at Ponferrada or not get to wear a UCI logo on their Time Trial suits for the next year. (see on the front of Tony Martin's jersey to the left of the Renson logo..) 

There are only six riders in the teams though compared to the 9 in a Grand Tour team. It was incredibly close last time around with OPQS beating Orica Green-Edge by just 81 hundredths of a second in Florence 2013. Sky filled the runner-up spot 22" behind OPQS. And in 2012 it was pretty close too with BMC finishing 3" behind OPQS. 

Of the key Team Time Trial's held so far this year, the results were as follows:

Tirreno-Adriatico: Omega Pharma-Quick Step, Orica-GreenEdge, Movistar
Coppi e Bartali: Sky, RusVelo, Cannondale
Giro del Trentino: BMC Racing, NetApp-Endura, Sky
Giro d’Italia: Orica-GrenEdge, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, BMC Racing
Vuelta a España: Movistar, Cannondale, Orica-GreenEdge

So a real mixture of results there, with OPQS and OGE swapping places between Tirreno-Adriatico and the Giro.

Then on Monday the 23rd we have the Mens under 23 TT and on Tuesday the Junior TT which are sure to be keenly contested battles between some of the best young time triallists in the world.  

TTT Route

The course is mostly flat but has two steep slopes – the first one alongside the beautiful castle of Villafranca of El Bierzo and the second one comes only 3kms from home. They aren't hard enough to really disrupt the rythm of the really strong teams but could find out the weak links in some teams. With only seven days having passed since the final stages of the Vuelta and the Tour of Britain a lot of these riders will come here with some good racing in their legs, some will thrive, some may be fatigued, but every rider will be giving their all in pursuit of the gold medal.

It's a figure of eight circuit which will see the riders tackle exposed roads, but thankfully the winds are not forecast to be very strong, only around the 3-4mph level. The temperature will rise to around 28º in the early afternoon but some thunderstorms are forecast for late in the afternoon, which may affect some of the late starters. 

Contenders and Favourites

The winners of this event for the first two years, OPQS, are favourites again - ranging from a typically poor 6/5 from BetVictor to a far more appealing looking 15/8 with Bet365. On the face of things they look a shoe-in once again, and that's almost entirely down to the man-machine that is Tony Martin. Looking closer at the team though, this isn't the same team that won it last year - two very powerful triallists are no longer with OPQS - Sylvain Chavanel and Kristof Vandewalle. In fact, of the team that won last year, only Martin, Kwiatkowski and Niki Tersptra are back this year.

The replacements this year - Boonen (won this in 2012), Serry and Vermote are all strong riders, the question is, are they as strong, and more importantly, as cohesive a unit as last year's team? Vermote showed the strength and form he has last week with his solo victory in the Tour of Britain. When they won in Tirreno-Adriatico though in March, only Martin and Kwiatk were in the team. In the Vuelta, with Martin, Boonen and Serry in the team, they finished a disappointing 5th place.

They are probably still the best team in this race, but maybe it'll be close like last year, and you can't get much closer than 0.8 seconds. At 7/4 are they worth backing though? Let's take a look at the key opposition then.

Although there are plenty teams going to be lining up for this race, there are realistically only about 4 or maybe 5 teams who are likely to win this. The biggest danger to OPQS is of course Orica-GreenEdge. Losing out by 0.8 seconds last year really hurt them and they will be very determined to win it this year. The last time two times they met, OGE won by 5 seconds - in the Vuelta they finished 3rd and 5th, in the Giro they finished 1st and second. On those form lines you'd wonder why they're not the other way around in the betting.

Looking at the betting on Betfair just now though, after Betfair finally opened a market, it's interesting to see that the prices are actually the other way around, as I thought they should be - OGE are the 13/8 favourites and OPQS are actually over 2/1. In fact you can play the arbitrage on OGE's prices, backing them at 2/1 with Skybet and laying they at 7/4 on Betfair, giving a free bet to win 0.25pts on OGE. 

Their team is strong and well experienced - in fact, the team is almost the exact same as last year's with just Howson, the current U23 TT champion, replacing Impey. Tuft, Durbridge and Hepburm are very powerful engines and Howson, Lancaster and Mouris are top quality triallists too. They are really fired up for this one this year and the course should suit them quite well too - lots of rolling flat bits for the big diesels like Tuft to put the power down and they shouldn't be too inconvenienced by the hilly bits. They've also been putting a lot of preparation in to this test, having held a training camp in Spain to prepare. They are almost certainly top 3 material and should go very close to winning it.

Trek Factory Racing have a really powerful squad here this year too. Fabian Cancellara leads the lineup and is supported by a winner from last year's event, Vandewalle, who moved to TFR from OPQS. He also has the very strong Jesse Sergent, Jasper Stuyven, Markel Irizar, and the old veteran Yaroslav Popovych lining up. Cancellara has skipped the individual TT this year, almost certainly as he knows he can't beat Martin, and I think he would really like to win this to get one over on Martin and to wear that Team Time Trial winner's logo on his shirt for next year. 

They range from 5/1 to 13/2 with the better bookies but are over 7/1 on Betfair. I picked them to win the TTT in the TDF this year, when they were one of the favourites to win it, but they only went and crashed en-masse in a training ride and that was surely a factor in their poor showing. No excuses like that this time (hopefully!) should see them go very close here this time. 

Team Sky may be missing two of their best TT'ers in Froome and Stannard, but it is still a very strong squad they are sending out here in Ponferrada. The team is led by Wiggins, fresh from his demolition job in the TOB TT last Sunday, and he is supported by Thomas, Siutsou, Kiryienka, Puccio and Cataldo. I don't think they are as powerful and cohesive a unit in total and I think they will be battling for a top 5 placing but not a podium. 

The home favourites Movistar won the TTT in the recent Vuelta, but that was over a much shorter distance of just 12.6kms. This is over four times that distance and it's been a while since Movistar have put in a big performance over a longer distance like this. Their team has some real Time Trialling talent though, with Dowsett, Malori (winner of final TT in the Vuelta), Amador, Erviti, Izagirre, and Sütterlin. Their chances are difficult to work out though and that's reflected in their prices, they range from 8/1 to 14/1 with the bookies. I think they will struggle to podium though and may well to get top 5. 

Cannondale were the other big surprise at the Vuelta TTT, leading it for a long time until Movistar came and won it. There are only 3 of the squad that took part in the Vuelta TTT here though in Sagan, Bodnar and De Marchi, and the additions of Marangoni, Koren and Koch are good, but not great. Can't see them troubling the podium, although the fact that they are off later might help them if the rains come. They are a huge 150/1 if you fancy them. 

BMC should put in a big showing with the likes of Dennis, Van Garderen, Velits (winner last year), Quinziato, Dillier and Oss in the team. They are generally 10/1 but as big as 14/1 but I think they may struggle to break in to the top 3. 

I can't really see any of the others causing a shock though. Tinkoff-Saxo are a 5th to 10th type team, as are Garmin, Astana and Giant-Shimano at best - they are 50/1 - 150/1 for a reason. 

So breaking it all down, I think it is going to be incredibly close between OGE and OPQS. I think though that OGE might finally get one over OPQS and claim the gold medal and should be backed at 2/1 with Skybet or 15/8 with Will Hill is the next best. OPQS should be good enough for second place with TFR rounding out the podium. Sky, Movistar and BMC should fill the top 6. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on Orica-GreenEdge at 2/1 with Skybet

2pts on Trek Factory Racing to finish in the Top 3 at even money with 888Sport.

1pt acca on OGE to win, Tony Martin to win the ITT @ 1/3, Marianne Vos to win the Women's Road Race at 4/6 and Ellen Van Dijk to win the Women's TT @ 8/13 - the four fold pays 15/2 with Bet365.

Match Bets

None of the match bets are particularly appealing to me

World's Road Race Championships >>

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