Tour de France: Stage 6 Preview

Stage 6: Vesoul – Troyes

216km – Suited to Bunch Sprint

Wolf followers had a fill up on Stage 5 with the value pick & the H2H multi both winning at $12 & $10.71 respectively.  The Wolf nailed the analysis of Aru’s stage chances as he did indeed wait for the steep section of the climb to attack as Porte & Froome both marked each other.  What was impressive was the way in which he completely rode away from the high class field to record a win that his form had always indicated was a real possibility. It was a fast day in the saddle with BMC setting a high temp and never allowing the strong breakaway group to get too far ahead. Team Sky then took over on the climb of Belles Filles with Kwiatkowski setting an unbelievable pace that most of the peloton (including some of his own team) couldn’t match. Aru spotted his opportunity to attack with just over 2km to go to the summit finish and drove all the way to the line, putting him into 3rd place overall, with Froome taking over the yellow jersey from his teammate, Geraint Thomas. Dan Martin was equally as impressive as Aru and now sits in 3rd place overall and for Richie Porte, well we didn’t really learn too much about how he is feeling. He rode alongside Froome for the majority of the climb and given his team did most of the pulling all day, he’ll be disappointed that he couldn’t grab the stage win.

Stage 6

The sprinters come back to the fore on Stages 6 & 7 and with both Sagan & Cavendish out of the race, it should start to become a little easier to predict what is going to happen. The riders face another long day in the saddle with only a couple of slights rises in the profile of the stage.  The breakaway should form early but it doesn’t stand much chance of succeeding as the sprint teams will be making sure that everything comes back together for a bunch sprint finish. Unlike previous stages, there is almost nothing on the route that would lead to a complicated sprint and we should see a fairly straightforward run in to the line. With Sagan gone, the race for the Green jersey is now wide open. Demare holds a decent lead at present but he’ll face stiff competition to hold onto the jersey all the way to Paris. The Wolf is going for 3 straight multi wins and all his tips are below.

Marcel Kittel – $2.00

Poor positioning put pay to any chances of a win on stage 4 as he couldn’t get close the the lead group before crashes turned the sprint into chaos. His lead out train have not fired as yet but they are still the best train the race and they have to turn that around at some point.  The Wolf is predicting that tonight is when they’ll decimate the field and with Kittel’s speed, he should win the stage comfortably. Wolf’s best.

Arnaud Demare – $3.50

With a win and a second place to his name so far in the Tour, Demare is rightly the 2nd favourite in the market. He is flying and he also has a team built specifically around him for stage wins. Like Quick-Step, the train has been disappointing so far and like Quick-Step, that has to turn around at some point.  The easy finish to this stage represents the perfect opportunity for the two teams to go up against each other in a straight fight to the line but The Wolf feels that Kittle has a greater top speed on the flat and that Demare will place only.

Dylan Groenewegen – $15.00

On a flat finish this we have tonight, there are probably only 2 riders afster than Groenewegen, that being Kittel & Greipel. He looked fast on stage 4 in what was a messy sprint, before tumbling over the top of a prone Cavendish and Lotto-Jumbo have shown that their train can mix it with the big boys.  The long straight plays into his strengths and he could challenge Kittel & Demare for the win.

Rudiger Selig – $67.00

With Sagan sensationally out of the race, Selig takes over the role as lead sprinter in the Bora team.  Given the nature of the Sagan decision, The Wolf thinks thats Bora will be looking for a certain amount of retribution and what better way than to win a couple of stages in Sagan’s honour. Selig has been in good form all year and finished as runner up to Gaviria on stage 2 of the Giro on a similar looking sprint finish. If he sniffs an opportunity he certainly has the straight line speed to spring a surprise here.

Recommended Bets

Best: Marcel Kittel – $2.00

Value: Dylan Groenewegen – $15.00

Roughie: Rudiger Selig – $67.00