Tuesday 20 January 2015

TDU Stage 2

This is the annual uphill sprint into Stirling that the TDU graces us with every year.



This is a pretty consistent profile and it gives us a mixed sprint between the fast GC men looking for bonus seconds and sprinters who can cope with a bit of a hill. Now to get an idea of the contenders we do not have to go very far, we just need to look at the results from the last few years....


What is pretty clear is you have to be proper fast to get a win here, but there is also a place for riders who are not out and out sprinters or even known as sprinters, look at the last two winners, in a flat sprint Slagter gets beat by Goss and Ulissi loses to Gerrans.

Candidates are as follows;

Gianni Meersman, JJ Lobato, Nathan Haas, Daryl Impey, Simon Geschke, TomDum, Cadel Evans, SamDum, and newly crowned Aussie champ Heinrich Haussler.

First up lets look at Nathan Haas, if I'd backed him for GC I'd be looking at that table above and thinking "erm, where is Haas?" this is one of the stages where he has to get bonus seconds on the purer climbers. Haas came 5th in the GC in this race last year yet he was 18th in the stage into Stirling. No excuse, he's not backable.

Daryl Impey is the early bookmakers favourite and for good reason, he did the leadout for Gerrans last year and left the peloton gasping whilst still getting 10th, but does he have the top speed to win this? Impey is 30 years old and has not won many races down the years, admittedly he is working for others a lot of the time. Too short a price to back. However Orica will look to devastate the peloton to set him up as they will know that he won't win a sprint v anyone really quick but he is worth considering.

Giant bring a duo of fastish punchy riders in Geschke and TomDum. Of these two I prefer TomDum, he has a very surprising sprint and the races in Canada last year showed that he can compete in hard sprints.

Cadel Evans can never be discounted and I'd quite like to see him go well, he got 3rd here last year and I wouldn't be surprised if he repeats that.

Haussler is the Aussie RR champ and is talking himself up for this stage. However I don't think I can back him on the basis of beating a tired 20 year old from a break in that race.

Yet again I like Meersman, I know he can climb at World Tour pace and he is very very fast, he has won uphill finishes like this before and won races where he's basically been the only fast rider left.

Lobato is a huge danger he's looked fast on the flat and his wins have mostly come on finishes similar to this. In the tour de wallonie last year he beat meersman and with meersman he has to be joint favourite.

Looking at how the books are currently I think TomDum is the standout bet at 50s with bet victor and I've had half a point ew.

I will return later once my train eventually gets me home!

Tom Dumoulin 0.5pts ew 50/1 (min odds I would take are 25/1).

***UPDATE***

I'm adding Lorenzo Manzin at 200/1 (back till under 100/1), he's very young but is good on these finishes and I fancy having a small long shot play at 0.1pt ew at Betvictor.



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