Details

Published on Sunday, 14 July 2019 16:20

TDF 2019 Stage 10

Saint Flour - Albi

Tuesday 15th July, 218kms 

A transition stage that takes them across the Massif Central, leaving from a town that has seen plenty of action over the years, such as when Richard Virenque won on Bastille day back in 2004. 

It finishes in Albi where Peter Sagan won a sprint finish back in 2013, can he repeat the feat 6 years later? A lumpy, long stage of 218kms that looks like it's mostly descending, but there's lots of lumps and bumps along the way to test the legs. 

Stage 9 Review

A bit more of a battle to get in the break today, but annoyingly, despite 15 men going up the road, we had none in the break again. Garcia Cortina and Tratnik for Bahrain, Herrada, Soler, EBH, Postlberger, Sicard, Clarke, Tony Martin, Tiesj Benoot, Nico Roche, Stuyven and Impey got up the road and quickly had a lead of 10 mins as the peloton took a day off. 

The action started with 40kms to go when Postleberger attacked solo, drawing out Cortina, Stuyven and Benoot, but they were reeled in, as Posti forged on solo. They caught him on the tough climb 16kms from the finish, and Nico Roche and Tiesj Benoot kicked on, getting a little gap, Tratnik tried to bridge but couldn't, but a super-impressive Daryl Impey came up to the front guys like he was riding up Willunga Hill in January.. 

Benoot attacked again, Impey went with him, but Roche was dropped, and when they got the gap up to 17" there was always going to be only one winner, Impey easily outsprinting Benoot to take a great win for M-S. In the peloton, Bardet attacked on the final climb, taking an impressive-looking Porte and Bennett with him, but they were reeled in before long and the pack all finished together. 

The Route

This is a lot tougher a stage than it looks on paper, a bit like the stages of the Dauphiné held in the Auvergne this year. This part of France is just constantly up and down and very tiring. Three Cat 3s and a Cat 4, but I count at least 10 more little climbs along the way too. It feels like they are descending for most of the day though as they drop from almost 1000m to under 200m by the finish.

They continue to head southwest, passing through some interesting points of interest along the way - Chauds-Aigue with its natural hot springs, Laguiole, famous for it's knifes with the metal bee on the handle, ubiquitous in every house in France, and Rodez, a Ryanair destination serving the hard-to-reach region of the Aveyron. It looks a hard stage to control, but it's most likely to end in a sprint, with the last 50kms mostly downhill and a flat last 5kms.

There is a slightly uphill finish to the stage though, you can just about make it out on the last kms profile below, but it is just 1.3% for the last kilometre, nothing to worry about, although there is a very short bit of around 12% for 100 yards as they leave the bridge, but they will just fly right through it.  

Contenders and Favourites

So break or sprint? It's the day before rest day, the break had their fun today and lots of teams will want to bring this back to a sprint, so I think it's going to be a sprint finish. Betway at first agreed when they came out with prices early today and made Dylan Groenewegen and Elia Viviani the joint 7/4 favourites.. And you can understand why they did, it's very hard to decide who's going to win between the two of them following the last sprint. 

But strangely, once today's stage was over, they very quickly changed it to 7/4 Groenewegen and 11/4 Viviani, and chopped Ewan from 11/2 to 7/2.

Quickstep did a brilliant job once again in stage 7, Viviani was in a superb place hitting 200m to go, but couldn't finish the job because of the front wheel puncture he had.. I think if he'd have sprinted like he did in the previous sprint he'd have won it as Groenewegen had to come from quite a way back. 

Groenewegen though finished it very well, he launched, in his own words 'maybe a little too early' but when he did kick his acceleration was devastating, and he blew them away. Jumbo got the leadout a bit better this time, with Van Aert, Teunissen and Martin taking big pulls, but Martin was in the break all day today so might be a little bit fatigued. The way he shot past the other guys was super-impressive, he's clearly over the crash, and like last year starting to come alive from stage 7 onwards. 

But.. they may have made those two the joint 7/4 favourites to start with, but Ewan has beaten both Viviani and Groenewegen in sprints in this race, and was very, very close to taking the last sprint win. His Lotto team did a great job again of getting him in position, he shadowed Sagan until it was time to strike and when he did kick with 100m to go or so he too was incredibly fast. His back wheel jumped all over the place in the last 40m or so (see vid below from , losing him traction and speed, but the uphill finish suited him the last day, and it's a slight uphill finish in this one too.

If he can keep the back wheel on the ground this time and does the same sprint, I think he will be very close to winning again, and as long as he's a backable e/w price I'm going to back him as I still think he is one of the top 3 sprinters here - 11/2 was worth taking as a bet to nothing, the 15/4 he is with Bet365 makes it slightly under evens if he finishes 2nd or 3rd, I'd rather take 4/1 or better to get our stake back when he finishes in the top 3, but 15/4 might have to do.. But maybe one of the other bookies might go 4/1 later.  

Peter Sagan is just 6/1 and of course he won't be far off either, he's being his usual imperious, ever-present self in all the sprints. This is not a straight-forward stage though and is quite lumpy along the way, so a stage that helps Sagan's chances. He has looked tired at the finish of some stages recently though, maybe all the effort of the first week is catching up with him? 

Alexander Kristoff came very close on stage 4, sprinting to a fine 2nd place, but didn't go so well in the sprint in stage 7. Philipsen was leading him out, but they got separated in the last kilometer and ended up on the opposite sides of the road, and Philipsen said that with 300m to go he saw a gap and went for it himself. He ended up 5th, Kristoff was 10th.

Kristoff said afterwards "“Out of the last corner I was quite far behind, but Sven did a tremendous job to bring me up. However, it cost me a lot of energy to come back from that position and by then the race was over for me. I had a great position but no legs. From 2km to the line is critical and today I lost it in that section.”

Where does that leave him? Well he clearly was one of the fastest in stage 2, but is he regressing while others like Groenewegen are starting to find their feet? This sprint is very straight-forward from once they get in to the last 2kms or so, the last kilometre being almost dead straight, so he should hopefully have less problems staying on Philipsen's wheel this time and could well get involved again, at 16/1, he might be a decent e/w bet. 

Michael Matthews has started to show better legs it seems based on the finish of stage 8, 'winning' the sprint for 4th behind TDF, Alap and Pinot. Whether the others really made much of an effort to sprint for 4th place is debateable, Sagan in particular didn't seem too bothered, but he'd had a particularly hard day and was lucky to be with the leading group in the first place. He did sprint well though to take it, but he hasn't been close in any of the regular fast sprints, he just hasn't been fast enough, but at 33/1 he's sure to have some supporters. 

Matteo Trentin has been close too, but not close enough, same for Sonny Colbrelli and Giacomo Nizzolo - they will be fighting it out for the remaining places. I can't see anyone else getting involved again.

So decision time - well, I would probably have picked Groenewegen for this before the Tour started, but I am swaying back to Viviani again, especially at a price of 3/1, DQS had a reasonably quiet day today. I know he let us down last time, but he seems to have a valid excuse for that and I think that with that leadout, and if he can kick from the front again, Groenewegen might not be able to catch him. But Ewan will be up there challenging again too. 

Recommendations:

2pts on Elia Viviani at 3/1 with Bet365

0.75pts e/w on Caleb Ewan at 15/4 with Bet365 

Matchbets

Philipsen to beat Teunissen and Pasqualon to beat Garcia Cortina - 2pts at 5/4

Ewan to beat Sagan - 3pts at 17/20 with Will Hill

Trentin to beat Stuyven - 2pts at 4/6