Details

Published on Friday, 25 August 2017 00:40

Vuelta Stage 8

Hellín to Xorret de Cartí

Sat 26th Aug, 199.5kms 

Another 'mid-mountain' transitional stage that takes them west for almost 200kms from Hellin to Xorret de Carti just north of Alicante. The finish will be an interesting one with slopes of over 20% on the final climb.

This is a rolling, non-descript sort of stage that looks likely to see a break go early and not really a whole lot to look at for about 3 1/2 hours as they roll along towards the finish. The finish is interesting though with the Alto Xorret de Cati just 5kms from the finish, with parts hitting over 20% we could see some splits among the GC favourites and someone is going to lose 30" unexpectedly today. The question is, will it be a break or a GC finish? Will the bonus seconds on offer be too much of a temptation for some teams to let the break just take them?

This final climb was used in the Volta a la Communitat Valencia in 2016 when Woet Poels destroyed the field, coming home 23" ahead of Intxausti and Izagirre, with Aru 25" back in 4th. Will Poels be let off the leash to try to go for stage victory tomorrow? I doubt it very much.. 

Stage 7 Review

A strong break went early on of 14, which included Thomas de Gendt who went in pursuit of the KOM points on the first two climbs. It also had Jetse Bol who was closest on GC, but Sky weren't too bothered about it and the gap stretched to over 9 minutes at it's biggest. I have to admit I didn't see the stage today as I was stuck in the Irish sea without signal, but it doesn't look like I missed much. Thankfully I didn't go large on the winner bets, and miraculously, despite the peloton just rolling in a disinterested group, all matchbets won to land an 8pt profit on the day. You always fear the worst when it's a group rolling in like that with matchbets, but we got lucky this time. 

The Route

The stage starts in Hellin and heads north to Montealegre del Castillo after 45kms before turning and heading south again to almost the same trajectory they had started the stage from. There's almost nothing of note for 105kms but then they hit two Cat 3 climbs in 22kms, two short, easy affairs of around 4%. There is another uncategorised climb which tops out after around 150km and it's about 8kms long, but really the peloton should be all together after, in hot pursuit of the break. 

The next 40kms are downhill or flat as they head towards the finale at Xorret de Cati. The road starts rising suddenly with 8kms to go with the Cat 1 Alto Xorret de Cati, which averages 9% for 5kms, but it tops out with 2.9kms left to run, so if someone has managed to get a small gap over the top of the climb there will be a frantic chase to pull him back before the finish. The road descends quite steeply (-20%) from the 2km to 1km to go mark, but with 1km to go the road starts to rise again and it's a tricky uphill pull to the line for the last kilometre, rising in two steps.

There are three wide arcing bends that go right, left and right again inside the last 300m, and you need to know that there is only 100m left to the line after you round the final bend, being prepared for such a short 'finishing straight' could well be the difference between winning and losing the stage.  

Contenders and Favourites

So - break or peloton, peloton or break.. we got another big break again today of 14 riders, and this time they made it all the way to the finish, with Mohoric taking the victory for UAE. 

This looks like a stage where we'll have a massive battle for the first 35kms or so and the uncategorised climb that takes them up to the 38kms mark should help a break to go as Sky settle back and set a steady tempo. It could be another group of 10-20 riders, but as we saw in stages 6 and 7 a big group doesn't necessarily mean that they have more of a chance of staying away, in fact it's often the opposite as large breaks contain too many shirkers and passengers and game players. A smaller group with maybe 6-8 riders, all from different teams, has a better chance of success. But you don’t get to choose how many come in your break, it just happens.

The break will have about 100kms I reckon to stretch their lead before the gap starts to fall as they start hitting the two hills. And the peloton will continue to close the gap all the way to last 10kms, I think some of the stronger guys will have their eyes on this stage win and will work hard to pull them back ahead of the final climb.

And this is a tough finish – it says it averages 9% for 5kms, which is bad enough, but the section from 5kms to 4kms to go averages around 15% and that will be where we see the likes of Chaves, Contador and Froome kick off again I think, in an effort to blow things up and gain some more time on their rivals.

So can Chris Froome take the stage then? Remember, he won the Tour without winning a stage, something that annoyed him a little, although he pretended otherwise in public.. He wants desperately to win the Vuelta and you can see that in how he has attacked the race so far, but he also wants to win a stage. And it’s possibly one that he could take – he could explode away on that climb, and then descend like we know he can now, and sprint up the last kilometre. It depends on who goes with him I guess, this is a stage that had Alejandro Valverde’s name written all over it, who in the pack is a Valverde replacement?

Well some say Julian Alaphilippe is an heir apparent to Valverde’s Ardennes crown, a future winner of Flech-Wallone and LBL potentially. He’s had a few tough days this week, but took it easy in the pack on Friday. He might well fancy this one I think with the tough, steep slopes for only a few kilometres and the uphill sprint finish. He just needs to be able to stick with the likes of Froome and Chaves.

Esteban Chaves will go well up the climb, but I don’t think he’ll get enough of a gap to hold off the others over the last 3kms. Alberto Contador has been very lively in the hills in recent days, he seems to be well over the illness that caused him to get dropped and lose time earlier in the race. He will punch it up this climb again and might take a few with him, but like Chaves, will be beaten in a sprint by most.

Rusty Woods should be right there with them too, and can possibly win a sprint amongst an elite selection..8/1 is very short for a guy who's let us down too many times but I'd think that he'll be top 10, possibly top 6, maybe top 3. Tejay Van Garderen has been climbing well too and when Contador took off, first with Stetina in front of him and later with Pantano in front of him, very few were able to stay in his wheel – Froome and TVG were amongst the few who could. Roche recounts in his diary in the Independent today that Tejay was pissed off with the crashes, but Roche tried to lift him by telling him he was the only one who could stay with Contador and Froome. But Tejay will follow wheels again I think and won’t win a sprint.

Adam Yates and Simon Yates look to be a level just below what is needed here so far, but they could be riding themselves in to form and could come good on a climb like this. Simon Yates would have a good sprint on him in a reduced group and may even be good enough to skip away from them all up the hill and hold on. 

David de la Cruz has had an interesting few days, he looked great at times, he got dropped at times, he crashed on the climb on stage 6, just as Contador attacked, so he had to try to chase back on and never quite made it, but did cut the gap from over 30" to 17" by the line. The steep sections here will hurt him, but I think he can dig in and ride his way back on when it eases off a little nearer the top, he can descend very well and has a decent kick on him at the finish. I think he has a decent chance tomorrow and he's a very big price in my eyes at 70/1 with PP, but right now they are going win only for some crazy reason. If they go e/w later try and take that price, but to be honest I'd take down to the 40/1 he is with 365, Will Hill and Ladbrokes the useless shits haven't even priced him up. 

From the break you have the likes of Atapuma, Soler, De Marchi, Enric Mas, Luis Leon and maybe even Rafal Majka might be starting to feel a little better and might start a KOM push with a good Cat 1 win. Davide Villella might be keen to go in the break for the earlier KOM points, but he won't be winning the stage, same with Thomas de Gendt. Alexander Geniez has been a little disappointing ever since going on the attack early in the race to take the KOM points, he has not been good enough lately to keep up an assault on the jersey, Villella has had it easy so far. 

It's a tough one to call again, as to whether the break will even make it or not, but I think Trek, Cannondale, Quickstep and maybe even the likes of Bahrain Merida for Nibali might aid in the chase tomorrow to scrap it out on this final hill. Froome is a big danger to ride away from everyone, but maybe tellingly, he wasn't able to make one of those trademark Froome 'fuck you' attacks over Contador on Thursday. Contador is sure to test Froome again, and if there weakness shown, expect Chaves and the others to try to capitalise on it.

I think Woods is a good shout at 8/1 for a top 3 again, and DLC could have a big chance of a good result too, he tweeted today that he was annoyed to have lost time like he did as the legs are really good. Nicholas Roche could also hang in there tomorrow and try a late attack when the others look at each other on that last 1km uphill pull, it's not too steep, in fact it's a perfect Roche kind of hill.. at 80/1 he's worth a few pennies to try to sneak in to the red jersey and give Sky a break.. 

Recommendations -

0.75pts each-way on David de la Cruz at down to 40/1 with 365, you should get better elsewhere maybe. He's only 28/1 with Skybet, which is a bit more what I think he should be. 

0.75pts each-way on Michael Woods at 8/1 with Skybet

0.3pts each-way on Nico Roche at 80/1 with Skybet

Matchbets

Tejay to beat Zakarin, Anton to beat Pardilla, Roche to beat Kelderman - 2pts at 2.4/1 with Will Hill

Contador to beat Aru, Adam to beat Simon, Woods to beat Barguil - 3pts at 15/8 with Will Hill

DLC to beat Nibali - 2pts at evens with Will Hill