Paris Nice

The race to the Sun as the riders cross France from cold Paris to the relative warmth of the riviera is a big race but this year it has lost out to Tirreno Adriatico for the superstar names of Froome, Contador, Quintana etc. However that might make this a bit more interesting as a lot of the riders who are looking to bridge that gap are riding.

The course basically breaks down to a short prologue where time gaps will be 10-20 secs between the main GC guys at best, a few sprint stages and then stage 4 is a summit finish up the 10k long steady 6-7% climb of Chaubouret. An uphill sprint in stage 5, a climby day for stage 6 with a long descent into the finish which could be an exciting days racing. Stage 7 will be a decisive final mountain ITT up Col d'Eze.

This course basically means I do not see much value in GC bets until we've seen the first few stages. There is not a lot to gain amongst the GC guys until stage 4 but a lot could be lost in that time, just need some crosswinds on the flat stages, a crash, mechanical whatever and the bet is down the drain before the meaningful points of the race. Although I have taken 0.25pt ew on Sepulveda at 300s (tweeted earlier) just because it was a massive price

So with that in mind I'm more interested in the opening prologue, utterly flat, 6.7km in length, not a lot of wind forecast and dry conditions. This kind of length TTs are really interesting, and extremely difficult to predict as the time gaps are so small. They also open up the winner picks from the normal TT specialists to other riders who can sustain high speed over shorter distances. A good example is the slightly shorter prologue from Romandie last year, also pan flat 5.57km long and you get a top ten looking like the below;

OK the top two are TT specialists but there is also two sprinters in Kittel and Nizzolo beating Tony Martin and just 9 seconds covering the top ten. I'm expecting a similar looking make up from tomorrow's prologue in Maurepas.

The course looks like the below;

My bets for this are;

Wilco Kelderman 0.5pt ew 40/1 BV (tweeted earlier)

Wilco is a very good TT rider which has been masked a little by a crap bike, this year he's got a good TT bike to play with and I think through the season he'll post some strong results (I'm on him at 300s for the prologue in the TDF as well).


Rohan Dennis 1pt WIN 10/1 various

Rohan is great at the short TTs and he might put on a bit of a show here, apparently he has been putting in some mega training post his hour record and is targeting this prologue before working for TJVG in the overall.


Giacomo Nizzolo 0.15pt ew 125/1 ew Bet365

I just have a sneaky suspicion that Nizzolo might put in a big ride to test himself, in Le Samyn he was in good shape but had a problem with his wheel and he can do a fine short TT. I had to put this on just in case he went and did well...



One H2H is with Ladbrokes...

Ion Izaguirre v taaramae 11/8 for the prologue! 3pts on this.

Izaguirre is a good TT rider, Taaramae is not particularly and has been a bit ill.