Giro d’Italia Stage 6 is the first mountain stage of this years race so we can expect a big shake-up in the General Classification.The sprinters who have featured heavily so far will drop back in the standings and the contenders for overall victory will start to move up.
The Route
The stage is 157kms in length starting in Ponte and ascending throughout the day to finish with the 8km Aremogna climb into Roccaraso.
The stage opens with a climb out of Ponte, then a descent and flat section before the first big climb of the Giro to Bocco Di Selva.
It is in the lead up to this climb that the days breakaway will form.
I expect this to be slowly pulled back by the GC riders teams and a showdown to happen in the final 10kms.
The Main Contenders
None of the GC contenders will want to lose time today. The teams of Movistar, Astana, Sky, Katusha and of course Giant will take control of the peloton today.
The first mountain stage in a grand tour for a while in the 1990s and early 2000s usually ended up being a damp squib. No team was willing to play their hands and show the form of their team leader. Thankfully, this has changed in recent years especially with Team Sky in early Tour de France stages. They have attacked and allowed their leader to gain time on their closest rivals.
I suspect we will see attacks today, initially from the mountain domestiques like Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) or Giovanni Visconti (Movistar). Whether they are ‘given their legs’ will depend on the reaction from Sky, Katusha and Giant.
At the finish there will be a small front group but it should contain all of the top favourites – Nibali, Valverde, Landa, Uran, Dumoulin, Zakarin and a handful of others. If any of these riders are dropped today you can almost completely eliminate them from overall contention.
I hope a rider or a couple of riders that aren’t an overall threat manage to outpace the elite riders – Visconti and Carlos ‘Mr Renaissance‘ Betancur from Movistar or the Tim ‘always attacking‘ Wellens seem like strong options. Visconti has a good track record of winning this type of Grand Tour stage. Diego Ulissi will find the terrain ideal for a late surge but I think he will be more closely marked today that he was when he won Stage 4.
I will be looking at the ‘head-to-head’ market for todays stage
Bets
Back Giovanni Visconti to win Stage 6 for a 0.5/10 stake EW (1/4 odds top 3) at 67.0 with Coral.
Bet here:
WON – Back Tim Wellans to win Stage 6 for a 0.5/10 stake EW (1/4 odds top 3) at 34.0 with Boylesports.
Bet here:
Back Stefano Pirrazi to beat Ryder Hesjedal ‘head-to-head’ for a 2.0/10 stake at 1.72 with Paddy Power.
Bet here:
