Stage 14 of La Vuelta is a tough one starting in Sauveterre-de-Béarn and ending up a 1st category climb at Larra-Belagua 156.2 kilometres later. It is a mountainous route and the betting suggests a breakaway winner is likely.
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STAGE 13 WRAP
Jumbo-Visma absolutely dominated Stage 13 with Jonas Vingegaard getting the win, 30 seconds ahead of his Red Jersey teammate, Sepp Kuss. Primoz Roglic sprinted up to the back of Kuss to lose just 3 seconds to his teammate and Juan Ayuso was the best of the rest finishing 4th, 5 seconds behind Roglic.
The big story of the day was Remco Evenepoel getting dropped early and he ended up losing 27 minutes and there was also a big time loss for Joao Almeida who like Evenepoel just could not handle the early going he did manage to finish within 10 minutes of the winner though.
JERSEY UPDATE
Kuss now leads the General Classification by 1 minute 37 from Roglic with Vingegaard a further 7 seconds back meaning we have a Jumbo-Visma clean sweep of the podium positions. This may mean a lot of back slapping in the Jumbo-Visma team, but unfortunately as a spectacle, the race has been potentially ruined.
Cycling (in my opinion) should be about strength v strength and not about strength helping strength and when you have the top 3 riders in the same team and looking stronger than anyone else in the race it allows that team, in this case Jumbo-Visma, to orchestrate which of the three riders they would like to win the Red Jersey.
Enough moaning and back to the betting where Sepp Kuss is now the 11/20 favourite with Vingegaard at 2/1 and Roglic 5/1, Juan Ayuso is the 33/1 shot.
Storer showed his intentions for the Mountains Jersey yesterday and he is the 6/4 favourite ahead of Vingegaard and 3/1 while Kaden Groves is 1/8 for the Points Classification and Jumbo-Visma are now 7/20 for the Team prize.
THE ROUTE
There is a relatively flat start for the first 46 kilometres and that should make the formation of the breakaway interesting. In fact we may well see a real battle to get into the break with breakaway riders knowing that there is no real incentive for Jumbo-Visma to set the pace at the front of the peloton meaning the break has a good chance of sticking.
If the break forms on the out of category climb then it will contain plenty of strong climbers, but either way I don’t see Jumbo-Visma going to too much effort to chase it down and the only teams that could possibly ignite the stage are UAE and Movistar.
STAGE 14 BETTING
Michael Storer 11/2
Romain Bardet 9/1
Lennard Kamna 9/1
Primoz Roglic 11/1
Wout Poels 12/1
14/1 and better the balance
PREDICTION
Storer is the favourite for this stage and I no doubt he will be in the break, but at the same time he will be fighting for King of the Mountains points and may not have what it takes to finish it off. This isn’t a stage where you can bet with any real confidence, but I am going to go for two men that I hope will find themselves in the break and have the climbing ability to finish it off if anything near the best form.
Jan Hirt has been riding in service of Remco Evenepoel, but he should be freed up now and he is a climber that has delivered for me at long odds in the past. Egan Bernal has shown very little in this Vuelta, but if he can recapture any form he would be a runner from a small break.
Suggested Bet: Jan Hirt win at 33/1
Suggested Bet: Egan Bernal at 40/1
Note: All prices correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
