Vuelta a España 2019 – Stage 1 Preview

Here we finally go! La Vuelta a España 2019. We hope that you are as excited as we are, because this years Vuelta is bound to cause spectacle. Last year we started this race with a prologue that was won by Rohan Dennis, but this year we are once again starting off with an 18 km team-time-trial!

We are really excited with the newfound appreciation for TTT’s by race organisers, as they are a true technical sub-specialty of cycling that -in our opinion- deserves it’s place. Some teams spent a lot of time training for TTT’s and can consider themselves true specialists in this area, whereas other teams will just be looking to lose the least amount of time tomorrow.

After having visited the Tour de France TTT in Brussels ourselves, we will be in front of our TV’s tomorrow to see if Jumbo-Visma can pull-off another victory! Will they freewheel their way into the first red jersey? There sure are some new players on the block looking for a suprise victory! With that said, let’s first check out tomorrow’s route.

The Route:

The Team Time Trial takes us around the city of Torrevieja. Torrevieja is a bathing place next to the Mediterranean. The locals, who’s main sources of income are tourism, fishing and saltworks managements, will be very excited to see their national cycling pride visit their hometown. Given that it is August, there will also be plenty of tourist along the road looking to get a glimpse of the Vuelta riders!

As you can see in the picture below, the route -even though the road book says it is pancake flat- is not entirely flat. There is some minor (1-3%) elevation in the TTT, but it should not scary any of the Vuelta participants

The TTT parcours itself is not too technical. Most of it is on wide straight roads, and there are only few difficult corners. This means that having a few powerhouses amongst your squad will be really beneficial here! The second half of the route takes the riders right along the coast in a south-western direction, which will mean that if there is any significant wind, it will make life a lot harder for the riders. The picture below is a snapshot of the 2nd half of the TTT, which shows the ‘openness’ of the route as well as just how close they are passing along the Mediterranean.

Given the length of the stage (18 km) the difference between the favorites will argueably be small, yet significant. This TTT will obviously not make or break someone’s Vuelta, but it will influence the race-dynamics for the upcoming stages.

The riders will arrive at the local pier, which will surely result in some awesome race shots!

The Race:

A TTT, fastest team to complete the parcours wins.

Weather:

The weather will be dry, and since the TTT is taking place in the evening the temperatures will be very comfortable! There will be a gentle breeze from the east/north-east, which means that teams don’t have too worry too much about a headwind during the 2nd part of the TTT which takes us along the coastline. With the first team starting at 18:56 and the last team at 20:16, we expect the weather conditions to be fairly equal for all the teams.

The Favorites:

Jumbo-Visma
The one’s to beat! In the major 3 TTT’s this year they finished 1st (UAE Tour), 1st (Tour de France) and 2nd (Tirreno, behind Mitchelton-Scott).
With Tony Martin, Powless, Roglic and Kruijswijk they bring some real firepower to this race. This will allow ‘weaker’ TT’ers such as Bennett to just hang on, which ensures the pace will be kept high. We think that this distance and parcours are perfect for Jumbo-Visma, so they should be the ones to beat

Deceuninck – Quick Step
Another team that traditionally does well in TTT’s. A suprising third place in the TDF TTT, even though they had a lot of different riders on their line-up there. Their squad, which consists of Gilbert, Capecchi, Cavagna, Declerq, Knox, Richeze, Stybar and Jakobsen has some real raw power, and given the flatness of the route their can basically consider it an 18km long lead-out train. Weird but true fact: statistics show that teams who bring a sprinter traditionally do a lot better in TTT’s. The bookmakers currently list them as the 5th favorite, but we can see them easily challenging the podium!

Team Ineos
They might miss some of their true power, but never discount Ineos. De la cruz & Geoghegan Hart know how to produce a strong TT, and with Kiryienka/Doull/Puccio and Stannard they have the strength to maintain a high pace along this type of route. On their best day they are the one’s that should have the strength to challenge Jumbo Visma. However, with TTT’ing being a real team-sport, we are unsure how all the last-minute line-up switches will effect the TTT. They will probably be less of a perfect clockwork compared to their main rivals, who have had more chances to prepare themselves for this stage.

Education First
Education First riders have been producing some incredible ITT results this year. However, with TTT’s they somehow did not find the key to success yet. An 8th place in the UAE, a 7th place in the Tirreno and a 6th place in the Tour is substandard for a team with so much TT’ing potential and such decent TT bikes. Their GC cards Uran, Martinez and Tejay van Garderen all know how the produce a TT, and they also have Craddock as their main engine. 4th favorite for the bookmakers. Owen, Higuita and Carthy on the other hand are not worlds most proficient TT’ers, which -together with their TTT results so far this season- makes us question their ability to contest for the podium tomorrow.

Astana
They bring an armada of climbers, but do they possess the raw power to excel at this type of parcours? Their results so far this year: 15th in the UAE, 10th at the Tour and 13th in the Tirreno, but they did bring a really strong squad here. Boara knows how to TT, but we rate him a little bit less compared to the TT specialists that the other favorites bring here. Still, Fuglsang knows how to TT, and so do Luis-Leon-Sanchez and the Izagirre’s. Despite the gunpowder that they bring here in terms of ‘big names’, we think they lack the horse-powers to challenge here.

Sunweb
2nd in the UAE tour, 4th in the Tour de France and 3rd in the Tirreno. The riders of Sunweb know how to ride a TTT! The difference between then and now is that they don’t bring some of their specialists like Haga, Kragh-Andersen, Kamna and Matthews along. Will they make a suprise podium showing? We would be cheering for some Sunweb turnaround success after all recent events, but we think they lost too much strength by leaving all these specialists out.

Outsiders: CCC/Scott/Bora

The Winner:

Its hard to look past them, Team Jumbo Visma will win the TTT and secure the first Red Jersey. We think Ineos and (suprise!) Deceuninck-Quick step will also make the podium tomorrow!

Want to see who we are backing sports-betting wise? All this information will be posted on our twitter page troughout the Vuelta: Behind the Peloton!