Details

Published on Tuesday, 16 May 2017 00:10

Giro d'Italia St 11

Ponte a Ema to Bagno di Romagno

Wednesday 17th May, 161kms 

Stage 11 starts in Ponte a Ema in tribute to Giro legend Gino Bartali, and it's an interesting stage on the day after the first TT, a stage that looks perfect for the breakaway to succeed.. 

Well that was exciting today wasn't it! Tom Dumoulin was simply on another planet and destroyed not only the top GC guys, but the best time triallists in the race. He simply blew Nairo Quintana away, beating him by almost three minutes, to lift himself in to Pink with a margin of 2'23" over the Colombian. It looks a very healthy lead for Dumoulin considering he has another TT to go in the final TT, it looks now like Quintana will have to take something like five minutes out of him on the road ahead of the final TT in order to be safe. Five minutes is a big ask considering how well Dumoulin is riding, but it means that Quintana has no choice now but to go on the attack!

Geraint Thomas was sensational today too, smashing the decent time of Luis Leon Sanchez to take 2nd place, he came very close to taking his first Grand Tour victory. To perform like that after his crash bodes well for his chances for the rest of the race to try to move towards the podium spot. It was also a great day for Bob Jungels, storming in to 3rd place, taking a lot of time back on some of his GC rivals, to move up from 12th to 6th. Kiry rode well but was unlucky to come down on a bend late on, it wouldn't have made any difference to the out come though. And Nibali rode a very good TT too in 6th, he's now just 9" off the podium. 

So it's all to play for. At one point this afternoon Dumoulin was hammered in to 11/8 to win the overall, he's back out to around 7/4. He was 20/1 on betfair just a few days ago.. Quintana stays around 9/10 on Betty but it is starting to look like a 2-horse race, as the other GC men look to be on a similar level in the mountains (or worse) than Dumoulin, and he's going to destroy them in the final TT too. 

Very disappointing this morning to find out that Campanaerts was not going to be riding hard in the TT, that he was supposedly saving himself for the last week, to support Kruijswijk. Not only did he not go very hard at all, but he took the piss, riding around the course like he was on a butchers bike, with his Belgian National TT Champion's jersey opened almost down to his navel and some silly inscription on his chest, supposedly asking his girl to marry him or something. It meant it torpedoed our stage bet and the match bet on him, couldn't even trade out of it as 365 had removed the market.

I did put up an amendment to the bet this morning as soon as I saw that, adding Jungels e/w at 8/1, I hope some of you got on that at least, I know it was really last minute. Van Emden thankfully wasn't dicking around like Campanaerts though and did beat Barta at least, so a small loss on the day, but a very annoying loss given the circumstances. 

Plenty of guys will have had several days rest now, what with taking it easy on Blockhaus, the rest day and pottering around in the ITT, so there will be plenty who will have had their eyes on this stage. There are 44 KOM points on offer today, so I fully expect to see some of those with their eyes on the jersey getting in the break today. Nairo has taken over the KOM jersey thanks to his win on Blockhaus, but it is by no means certain that he will hold on to it all the way to Milan, as a lot of the key stages that are left don't actually finish on summits and there are plenty of points available out on the road for someone else to take it, as we were hoping for pre-race.

And I'm pleased to see that LL Sanchez and Fraile are both still in the hunt, Fraile looks up for breaks and Sanchez has snagged some points already too. I expect both of them to be involved tomorrow as the break should take all the points on this stage, Sanchez was seriously impressive today in the TT.. 

The Route

This stage across the Apennines takes in four consecutive categorised climbs, with not even a single flat stretch in between: Passo della Consuma, Passo della Calla, Passo del Carnaio and Monte Fumaiolo. After a flat run for the first 15kms they start on the Cat 2 Passo Della Consuma (16.7kms at 5.8%), then a 16.4km descent to the first Intermediate Sprint at Stia after 48.2kms. 

Next up is the Cat 3 Passo della Callo (16kms at 5.3%) and after the long 27km descent they start on the Passo del Carnaio (11.4kms at 4.5%) from where the route takes a first pass on the finish line in Bagno di Romagna (for the first time a stage town at the Giro). Then comes a long loop of 52km that takes the riders to clear the Monte Fumaiolo Cat 2 summit (23kms at 3.7%), but the last 3kms get pretty steep, averaging 8.6% and hitting a max of 12%. 

A long descent for 25kms leads all the way to the finish, with a little kick up for 4kms half-way down. The roadway is narrow and the road surface is worn out at points. With 3.5kms to go the road flattens out a bit and starts to rise a little bit on wide roads, with several curves and hairpins, and briefly touches the centre of San Piero in Bagno. The final kilometres are dotted with roundabouts. It's a long home straight, just bending slightly, on 6-m wide and perfectly level asphalt road.

Contenders and Favourites

As I said above already, this looks a perfect stage for a breakaway and I give them a high chance of succeeding. The top GC guys will have buried themselves in the TT and will want an easy day today. Plus they will already have one eye on Oropa on Saturday, they'll need all their helpers with them for that. Of course, there might be the situation where some of those that lost time in the Blockhaus stage or in the TT might want to explode things to see what happens, but I'm not sure that will happen. So - almost all break candidates for me then.. unfortunately the bookies have priced it up as a break stage and the odds are pretty poor so far. 

LL Sanchez is an obvious pick for this again, it looks a perfect day for him to get in the break and mop up the points to take him in to the lead in the competition (if he wins all 4 climbs). He's been in the break two days in a row, but I don't think he wasted too much energy on the road to Blockhaus as they were caught very early and he just rolled in 25 mins down. He showed today in the TT though just how good his legs are, he blasted around the course to take 4th overall and what was also impressive was his 3rd segment time where he was just 23" behind Dumoulin on the uphill part. That was a full 21" faster than Nairo on a climbing section, he clearly is flying. But 9/1 is all he is (opened 7/1!), they clearly were thinking along the same lines. Is it value? No.. should we back it? Probably. It's going to be a shock to not see him in the break, and he is excellent on stages like this and is good at late attacks, especially on descents. 

If Sanchez goes, then expect Omar Fraile to probably go too - he also was in the break on the road to Blockhaus, which actually was something that annoyed me, I tweeted about it on Sunday - why did the two of them waste energy going in the break on a stage where they were never likely to be challenging for the only KOM points on offer at the top of Blockhaus? Unless they hoped the break would get like a 12 minute lead or something and be left fight it out for themselves, which was never going to happen, and that was clear a long way from home.

But anyway, again, as they were just riding (fast) tempo for most of the stage and were caught long before the finish, he wouldn't have wasted too much energy either.. funnily enough, he came home in the same small little group as Sanchez. He's a far more interesting 22/1 though with 365, if they can thin the group out on the last climb there may only be 3 or 4 guys come to the finish together. He won't get away on his own though I think and he won't win a sprint against most guys, so although I hope he gets out and gets some points (behind Sanchez!) I won't be backing him for the stage. 

Mikel Landa is now an interesting candidate for the KOM - with the GC out of the window, he is probably going to be focused on stage hunting and possibly the KOM prize too - in fact, as soon as the bookies opened their overall markets again Sunday, they installed Landa as their 10/3 favourite for the KOM... depsite the fact he hit the ground so hard they had to run tests to see if he had torn a muscle.

Stages 18, 19 and 20 look perfect stages for Landa, and there are lots of KOM pts on offer, but I think tomorrow might just come a bit too soon for him and he might convalesce for a few days more to be ready for next week. But if the likes of Fraile or Sanchez do pick up points over the coming days, he'll have a battle on his hands for the jersey. So I'm happy to stick with who I have and I'm not interested in him at that price of just 12/1.

The leader of the KOM competition, Jan Polanc, the hero on Etna, rode superb again on Blockhaus, appearing out of nowhere to take 14th on the stage. He might well try to defend the jersey by getting in the break, but after an excellent 15th place in the TT today he sits in 14th in the GC so I doubt he'll be allowed go in a break by either those sitting above him in GC, or by those in the break who will not be happy with his presence. He may have to decide whether he wants to go for GC, or the jersey, but looking at the fact he went hard in the TT suggests to me he's riding for GC, if not, he'd have maybe lost some time to give himself some rope to attack.

Nicola Boem was in the orginal break on stage 8 to Peschici, but punctured at the worst possible moment and fell out of contention. He was furious and smashed his bidon off the road, something which he apologised for afterwards on Twitter in a funny post (right). That says to me though that I think he had good legs and was really disappointed to be taken out like that, I wouldn't be surprised to see him try again. I would expect Enrico Barbin to try to get away with him too like on stage 8, Barbin called him his 'team-mate, room-mate, friend' in a tweet yesterday. 

Rui Costa is very short for tomorrow's stage too at just 8/1, but it's because it looks like he has been targeting it and is likely to get himself in to the break of the day.. He did a pretty good TT today to finish 21st, despite losing his Garmin data early on (which he said affected his effort), and he looks to be in pretty good shape. He is only 18th in GC, but over 8 mins down, so he should be given some rope. A decent win by 3-4 mins can pull him back in to the top 10 too, it could be one of those days where the break is allowed build up a big lead, Movistar and Sky are not going to chase, it will be up to Sunweb to try to keep control of the situation. 

Giovanni Visconti was unlucky on stage 8, although he was not able to match Izagirre's surge up the hill, he was inconvenienced by the fall of Conti and if he had been on Izagirre's wheel when he attacked it might have been a different story, he finished the stronger possibly but just ran out of gas. He pottered around today, he could well be the Bahrain Merida man for tomorrow again. But again, he's just 12/1, a very, very short price in such an open race, but better than the 9/1 he opened at.. 

Pierre Rolland is also likely to go on the attack, possibly with some team-mates, he is probably still keen on picking up KOM points, he's still in the hunt for the jersey. Also, Cannondale lost a lot of time as a team on Blockhaus for the team competition, if they can get a rider or two in this break it will help with that matter a little bit. But Rolland is not a finisher any more, especially not on a finish like this, he's a terrible descender and can't sprint. 

Diego Rosa is short at just 18/1, especially as I think Sky might reassess their options again now with Thomas's performance today, a podium isn't out of the question if he can gain time on some climbs and do another TT at the end like today's. If so, they might tell their attackers to hold back for now. 

Matteo Montaguti is another I want to have onside though, he too rolled around today, saving energy, but tomorrow looks like a stage he might like. He was in the break on stage 9 that never made it, but I think he might give it another go. If he can get to the finish with the first group he'd have a good chance of taking the victory in the sprint, if it comes to one. He was 33/1 with Bet365 and I took some of that, they cut him to 20/1, but he's 36/1 with WillHill and that's worth a bet. 

Felix Grosschartner is one at a big price I'm going to add to the list, he rode a very good TT today to finish 26th and he rode very well recently in Croatia to finish 4th overall in the GC, finishing 4th and 5th on the big mountain stages, not far off Nibali at all. CCC have been active in this race and I think he could be one to suit him. 200/1 was available earlier, I missed that while writing, it's 125/1 now and that's worth a few quid I think. 

Valerio Conti could be a man on a mission for the rest of this race to make up for his fall in the finale of stage 8, we could see him try to get up the road again tomorrow too. Laurent Didier looks far too big at 350/1, he was in the break on stage 8. Gregor Muhlberger, Jan Tratnik, Pelle Bilbao, Alexander Foliforov, Ruben Plaza, Enrico Battaglin - all could be involved too, but I'm going to leave them for tomorrow, I think I have enough!

So the break should take it, I think Costa and Sanchez both have great chances - Costa from a reduced sprint or a late attack and Sanchez from a late attack after picking up the points on the KOM. Rolland and Fraile should be involved but I don't think they can win it, and Montaguti, Didier and Grosschartner are possibilities at bigger odds.  

Recomendations

1pt win on Rui Costa at 9/1 with 365

1pt each-way on LL Sanchez at 9/1 with 365

0.2pts each-way on Felix Grosschartner at 125/1 with 365

0.15pts each-way on Laurent Didier at 350/1 with 365

0.5pts each-way on Matteo Montaguti at 36/1 with Will Hill 

Matchbets

Pozzovivo to beat Kruijswijk and Costa to beat Conti - 3pts at 5/4 with 365