Vuelta 2018 Stage 1: Málaga 8 km ITT

[Robert5091]

Saturday August 25 and the year's 3rd GT -

Vuelta 2018 Stage 1: Málaga 8 km ITT

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Whole course

Start list and times at
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/start-times-for-vuelta-a-espana-opening-time-trial/
First man off is Jorge Cubero Galvez (Spa) Burgos BH at 17.26 CET

Rohan Dennis must be a good bet. Weather forecast is for a warm 30C but some gusty winds might cause problems.

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Dennis / Kwiatkowski FTW

 

[RedheadDane]

I'm gonna be boring and say Dennis.

 

[ClassicomanoLuigi]

Castroviejo big threat for the win - recent form, familiarity with the location, short distance ITT

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Dohan Rennis

 

[Midnightfright]

My guess for top 3-

1) Dennis
2) Kwiatkowski
3) Campenaerts

 

[Laplaz]

GC guys:
Porte
De la Cruz st.
Kelderman +5
Valverde +10
S. Yates +15
Zakarin +15
Nibali + 20
Uran +20
G. Bennett +25
F. Aru + 30
Quintana +30
MAL +35

 

[Midnightfright]

Re:

GC guys:
Porte
De la Cruz st.
Valverde +10
S. Yates +15
Zakarin +15
Nibali + 20
Uran +20
G. Bennett +25
F. Aru + 30
Quintana +30
MAL +35

If Portes illness is true he might not be fully recovered. Will be interesting to see and you would generally expect him to come up trumps out of the GC guys

 

[Son of Amsterhammer]

Re:

GC guys:
Porte
De la Cruz st.
Kelderman +5
Valverde +10
S. Yates +15
Zakarin +15
Nibali + 20
Uran +20
G. Bennett +25
F. Aru + 30
Quintana +30
MAL +35

Not sure I see Richie going that hard. I think the gaps will be smaller than this.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Plus Porte has often done really poorly in short flat ITT's.

 

[search]

for whatever reason he is also the only GC contender to start early

 

[Jspear]

Kwiatkowski because his form seems on point already.

 

[Midnightfright]

Re:

for whatever reason he is also the only GC contender to start early

Yeah that's a strange one, weather looks to be consistent throughout the day. Maybe he wants to lay down the marker to other contenders?

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Dennis. Because he's the best in the world

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

GC guys:
Porte
De la Cruz st.
Kelderman +5
Valverde +10
S. Yates +15
Zakarin +15
Nibali + 20
Uran +20
G. Bennett +25
F. Aru + 30
Quintana +30
MAL +35

It's not really Porte's type of course and if it's windy it won't help the little guys. Dennis wins, daylight second.

 

[Red Rick]

Kwiatkowski vs Dennis for the stage

Nibali to do terrible

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Dennis vs Valverde methinks.

 

[Koronin]

I'm going for Castroviejo to win the stage with Dennis very close to his time.

Porte is sick, so depending on what kind of form Valverde has, he could be the best placed GC rider after this, on the other hand it's also not really the type of TT he prefers.

 

[Midnightfright]

Re:

I'm going for Castroviejo to win the stage with Dennis very close to his time.

Porte is sick, so depending on what kind of form Valverde has, he could be the best placed GC rider after this, on the other hand it's also not really the type of TT he prefers.

Not his favourite profile but I think that applys for all the GC guys. If Porte truly is Valverde is better placed than the others to take a small advantage. Saying that I expect the time difference between 1st and last of the GC guys to only be 20-25 seconds

 

[ecw445]

Going with Trentin as the outsider for this, might be one of the few really fresh guys in form, placed 5th on the Düsseldorf TT open last year in the Tour, in front of guys like Kwiatkowski, Castroviejo.

 

[jfazendeiro]

This year there were two other time-trials with about 10kms in which R.Dennis had good results: 1st in stage 7 of Tirreno-Adriatico (10.05kms) and 2nd the Giro d'Italia prologue (9.7kms).
The few points of comparision indicate a degredation of the results in this time-trials as the denivel increases.
The Tirreno-Adriatico time-trial had a positive denivel of 8m. From the cyclists also present in the Vuelta, J.Castroviejo lost 8s, M.Kwiatkowski lost 20s and V.Campenaerts lost 23s.
The Giro d'Italia prologue had 155m of positive denivel. There Dennis recorded the same time of V.Campenaerts. Neither Castroviejo or Kwiatkowski were present.
The Vuelta prologue is mainly flat but still has 63m of positive denivel.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

I'm going for Castroviejo to win the stage with Dennis very close to his time.

Porte is sick, so depending on what kind of form Valverde has, he could be the best placed GC rider after this, on the other hand it's also not really the type of TT he prefers.

Not his favourite profile but I think that applys for all the GC guys. If Porte truly is Valverde is better placed than the others to take a small advantage. Saying that I expect the time difference between 1st and last of the GC guys to only be 20-25 seconds

True, I think you'd be right, although I did forget about Uran who could do well on this TT course. I agree with you that the GC times should be within a half minute after this stage.

 

[Son of Amsterhammer]

You can only ship so much time on an 8k (dry) course!!

 

[Black Betsy]

Valverde like yesterdays news.

 

[May0maniac]

My pick is Rohan.
A 90kg heavy sprinter like Walscheid (who's racing his first gt) could do well in such a short TT if he actually goes full gas.