After the toughest first day in the yellow jersey that he
could have imagined and a hellishly tight run to the finish yesterday, Chris
Froome will be more grateful than many for today’s time trial, one of two
individual time trials during this Tour De France.
This tour was, and is, one for the pure climbers and will be
decided in the mountains, but Froome already holds a solid lead in the general
classification of 1'25" minutes on Alejandro Valverde (Movistar),
1'44" on Bauke Mollema (Belkin), with Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) at
1'51”, Nairo Quintana (Movistar) at 2'02" and Joaquím Rodríguez at
2'31". Those are already significant gaps and with Froome the best against
the clock of the GC men, and that by some way, on this season’s evidence.
In the 32KM time trial in the Dauphine, the big warmup event
for the Tour, Froome took 3 and a half minutes out of Valverde and Alberto
Contador and even more out of Rodriguez, while back at Tirreno Adriatico he
took more than a minuite out of Bauke Mollema over a time trial just 9.2km
long.
This route is a little more irregular than the one used at
the Dauphine but exposed roads with winds mean that the same riders will come
to the fore and also that positioning will be at a premium. Tony Martin is nine
from nine in time trials this year and should take this well, but is no value
as the doubts over his wellbeing from a brutal crash have gone and it should be
a margin of how far.
There are many contenders for the third spot – we are of the
opinion that Martin and Froome have this between them – but we’re also big fans
of Michael Kwiatowski, and fancy him to take third in what should be a tight
battle for the third with Jonathan Castroviejo. Small each/way wagers on the
pair would be our advice.
Advice
0.5 pt each/way Michael Kwiatowski (20/1 Ladbrokes)
0.5 pt each/way Johnathan Castroveijo (25/1 Ladbrokes)
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