Couch Critic previews the 2021 edition of the Giro d' Italia and puts up his best outright bets with @Olimp_SA
Giro d’italia 2021
Cricket is the stepchild I am forced to love and NRL is that inappropriate mate you can’t expose your wife/girlfriend to. F1 is the teasing older brother but rugby is always the nurturing, caring father figure. Yet cycling is my “hall pass” – that hot Hollywood actress who’s movies you watch ten times over, four of those times without the sound on. She’s one that gets your motor running!
Where the Tour de France is the well-known main dish the Giro d’Italia is by no means just a finger snack. The Italians are passionate people and this is sure to be a tasty meal prepared with love – one I’m ready to dig into with gusto. The route will consist of three weeks worth of challenges which include six summit finishes and 38km’s of time trialling. Here are my pre-race bets for this brilliant event.
Top 10: Antonio Pedrero @ 10.00
Fresh off a good shift in the Vuelta Asturias (finishing second behind Nairo) there is little reason not to throw a few pennies the way of Pedrero. In this field he can be considered a veteran and despite the fact that he rides for the tactically challenged Movistar team he has a decent shot at being left to fight for a good GC spot if team leader Soler were to fluff his lines early doors. He has improved from 92nd to 46th to 19th in his last three Giro outings so he is trending nicely toward a top 10 result from where I’m sitting.
Knox hasn’t shot the lights out in 2021 thus far but hopefully the Brit is just keeping his powder dry (14th in the Tour of the Basque Country isn’t the worst showing given the class of the field). No longer a fresh-faced youngster the Quick-Step rider finished 14th in the Giro last year and his 11th in the preceding Vuelta could also have been much better bar a bad last few days. The team have plenty of other irons in the fire but Remco has all sorts of questions marks around his return whilst Almeida is also not an experienced team leader to place all your chips on. Knox looks value at this price.
King of the Mountains: Mikel Landa @ 29.00 & Vincenzo Nibali @ 29.00
Looking at the race profile as well as the allocation of Mountain points it really does look like the KOM battle will only hot up later in the race. Of course, we often see a top climber who falls out of contention early have a solid play for the polka or alternatively a rider from a smaller team who targets this as their main goal. This year however I reckon we will see this this mountain goat be one of the eventual top 10 riders. With the Time Trialling bookending the Giro I expect the pure climbers to really target the last few big climbing stages to try and stake their claim for the Overall, a Top 3 or Top 10 result. Here’s looking at Landa who doesn’t like battling the clock on a flat piece of road as well as Nibali who is likely to only really find his climbing legs in week 3.
To win the points classification – Caleb Ewan @ (price to follow)
Ewan is a pure sprinter who should be the fastest man in the race. Usually Caleb would keep his nose down and only worry about stage victories but if he can get ahead after a few wins he might just stick things out for the duration and look to take on Sagan for the points jersey. At the price I like this play.
To win the race – Hugh Carthy @ 14.75
I feel the value in the race lies with those just behind the top favourites. Bernal has a question mark over an iffy back and Evenpoel comes into the Giro as his first Grand Tour attempt and also first major race after serious injury. Simon Yates has to be the pick amongst the favourites but he is just way too short for a one-time Grand Tour winner over three weeks.
Buchman, Landa, Almeida, Vlasov, Sivakov and Carthy are the ones that I will be considering. I will be keeping an eye on all of these riders looking to get involved in-running if perhaps they have a slow start. In the end I have opted to stake my pre-race play on a relatively experienced hand amongst the youth in this race. Carthy is now 26 years old and was 11th in the Giro in 2019. This is his first Grand Tour after finishing fourth in the Vuelta Espana last year. It’s his time.
(Note, all odds quoted are subject to change)
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