The race for the Red Jersey in the Vuelta A Espana has been
on the go since Stage 3 but today is the start of the race defining week with
three (stages 15, 16 and 20) which finish on hors catégorie-rated ascents
coming up soon. At the moment one of our two fancies, Joaquim Rodriguez, leads with
a 50 second gap but he is expected to lose his lead and quite a significant amount
of time in the time trial. Despite his best and most valiant efforts, Rodriguez,
a noted struggler in time trials, lost the Giro (ironically the only one not to
have feature an ITT with a climb in since 2007) on the last stage to Ryder
Hesjedal in a ITT having held a 31 second advantage and will all but lose his
lead today, although there is more in his favour than previously.
World Champion Tony Martin has had a rollercoaster year but
after a dreadful Tour De France – where he broke his wrist, and had punctures
on two of the three ITT’s during the race - bounced right back to form with an
Olympic silver medal in London where he beat Chris Froome convcingly, much like
he did when winning the ITT last year- his second in a breakaway to Simon
Clarke on Stage 4 also bodes very well. The difference between those two
courses and this one is that they were much flatter than today’s stage and benefited
those who have incredibly high average speeds – hence Bradley Wiggins’s
dominating victories. Today’s course is far more likely to suit Froome, who has
improved on his time trialling greatly over the past year and a half than
Martin, and while Stan James have it right in making the pair joint favourites,
preference would be for the team Sky man.
Firstly – as explained later – today’s course is far more
testing than most time trials, with a Cat 3 climb and decent adding to a hugely
technical course that should allow him to retain some ground upon the other
main contenders, and secondly he of course has the stages to make up ground
later on in the week. He course he lost the Giro on was bone flat barring the
turns, which is vastly different to today’s stage, which is the most
challenging ITT in recent Vuelta history.
In three of the last four years the course has been flat and
rolling, where TT experts have used massive gears to destroy the field. The
inclusion of the Cat 3 Alto de Monte Castrove, a 10km ascent at 4.4%, will
ensure that does not take place again and is sure to level the playing field a
bit for the climbers as well. Another cat amongst the pigeons is the extremely technical
nature of the course. With several urban areas – the 1st 13 km are constantly
turning and include a selection of roundabouts, traffic passes and extremely
sharp turns, while many of the same features will be used for the the streets
of Pontevedra during the last 2KM – along with the twisting, turning, woodland descent
– all with poorer roads - that drops for 10km after the Alto De Monte Castrove,
along with the fast kick up straight afterwards.
World Champion Tony Martin has had a rollercoaster year but
after a dreadful Tour De France – where he broke his wrist, and had punctures
on two of the three ITT’s during the race - bounced right back to form with an
Olympic silver medal in London where he beat Chris Froome convcingly, much like
he did when winning the ITT last year- his second in a breakaway to Simon
Clarke on Stage 4 also bodes very well. The difference between those two
courses and this one is that they were much flatter than today’s stage and benefited
those who have incredibly high average speeds – hence Bradley Wiggins’s
dominating victories. Today’s course is far more likely to suit Froome, who has
improved on his time trialling greatly over the past year and a half than
Martin, and while Stan James have it right in making the pair joint favourites,
preference would be for the team Sky man.
Froome will be wanting to put time into Alberto Contador –
still many people’s favourite for the Vuelta - on this stage although if the Spaniard
is on top form, that will be a hard task. Contador has put in some of the
biggest efforts of his life to all but win grand tours on time trials, notably
his 2011 Giro win (stripped from him) and his 2009 Tour De France win, where he
beat Fabian Cancellara by 3 seconds to nail a second tour win (as seen left). Some were
worried for his condition after struggling on the punchy mountain top stage 6
finish but he’s since put those doubts to bed and should take some beating. In preparation
for this, he’s ridden the course eight times beforehand so will know it like
the back of his hand, and at 11/4 – nearly double the price of Froome and
Martin – he has to be the bet today to take the red jersey.
Of the others, nobody makes any real appeal barring Garmin’s
young prospect Andrew Talansky, who was just a second behind Bradley Wiggins in
the Tour Of Romandie’s final ITT. The American has been crusing so far through
the race but should give this his all and is an interesting contender. Of the
top ten, both Rabobank riders should hold their spots and it’ll be interesting
to see how Ireland’s Nicolas Roche – 22nd in Stage 9 of the Tour De
France – gets on with a number of the better TT’ers absent and the course sure
to suit an attack for him later in the tour, while Valverde should be aiming to
put some time into Rodriguez despite his less than perfect TT technique as
well.
Advice
1 pt Alberto Contador (11/4 Stan James)
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