Results tagged “Alejandro Valverde”

A lot of people have seen the signing of Oscar Pereiro Sio as simply an attempt to bolster the Astana squad with an experienced rider who can be there when it matters in the high mountains.

His ability to sacrifice his own interests in working for Alejandro Valverde over the last few years will have been a characteristic that appealed greatly to Contador. This isn't a guy who is going to give him grief or take off in search of a stage win while the real battle is happening behind.

That's pretty vital to a guy who has lost his trusty domestique Sergio Paulinho to Radioshack. Contador still faces having to ride on someone else's team with the return of Alexandre Vinokourov to "his" Astana team.

What is so brilliant about signing Pereiro is that it's a very astute political move given the situation.

We can assume that ASO are going to be asking questions about Astana's inclusion on the basis of Vinokourov's presence. They've not forgiven him for his actions in 2007 which essentially amounted to kicking them in the balls while they were out cold after the Floyd Landis debacle.

Now name the only team in cycling with two Tour de France winners on their roster.

The answer is Astana with Alberto Contador and Oscar Pereiro.

The former is the defending champion who was unable to defend his title in 2008 because of the repercussions for Astana of Vinokourov's ban.

The latter is the rider robbed of his moment of glory on the podium in Paris as a result of Floyd Landis' ban.

In pure political terms the weight of their achievements/history combined may be the necessary counter to Vinokourov's disgrace, which still drags like ten tonnes of shit behind Astana.

We know that being defending champion in 2008 wasn't enough on its own to swing the balance in Contador's favour, albeit the politics then included Johan Bruyneel on the scales.

Given the passing of time and their record, the two riders may be enough to convince ASO not to exclude Astana this year.

Way back in 2006 I made my most successful tip on the race ever: I told a friend who does a fair bit of betting to take Flooyd Landis to win on Betfair at around 70/1. He might well have put a hundred quid on him while I didn't, not wanting to jinx his bet. Regardless of what happened after the race, it paid out in July.

It was probably a month or two out from the start when he placed his bet and that's when the market tends to be at its ripest for picking. But there's still some pretty good prices to be had, even on some of the most obvious favourites you can still make a reasonable return on a 5 quid fun bet if it comes off.

For me the obvious value is currently in the sort of riders who don't get the sort of talk up that Armstrong, Contador and Evans will. They tend to be a bit longer odds until the race starts to shake out.

Most striking is the price on the defending champion, Carlos Sastre, who can still be picked up at the equivalent of 27/1 and last year's 4th place rider, Christian Vandevelde, at monstrous 129/1. Denis Menchov, 3rd last year and winner of the Giro D'Italia 2009, at 15/1 looks decidedly short odds by comparison.

Perhaps it's a case that the money going into the market isn't as smart as it should be. Vandevelde's price probably reflects his injuries at the Giro but if he has a good Tour de Suisse, then it could come in pretty quickly.

If you are an experienced gambler and know how to balance your books, I imagine that there's good money to be made in lay betting, something which I've never been able to get my head round. Looking down the list there's plenty of riders who are unlikely to even start (Alejandro Valverde, Andreas Kloden, Ivan Basso) so it might be worth checking what the policy is. Betting on them not to win would seem to be all too easy, so obviously I've missed something.

Closer to the time you should see head-to-head bets appear (ie X vs Y) which are usually fun and frequently poorly chosen meaning that a bit of cycling knowledge can go a long way, for example in sprints.

Here's that video clip I promised you. Yes, I know the audio's out of synch due to dropped frames and I'm pretty embarrassed that I couldn't remember where Shanaze is from but I don't want to hurl my laptop out the window in the course of tinkering further. Enjoy.

Jamie Staff and Shanaze Reade on BMX from Alex Murray on Vimeo.

Meanwhile the World Road Race Championships are under way which totally escaped my notice. For some reason I had then down under the other day starting with a T, Thursday.

I'm going to take a punt on the Men's Road Race winner and say Oscar Friere sneaking it while everyone is watching Paolo Bettini and Alejandro Valverde. That or another lesser-known rider taking advantage of the big nations marking each other and carrying them to the line.

I can't quite figure out the Great Britain plan. David Millar should obviously ride for the Time Trial title in the absence of Fabian Cancellara, but with Levi Leipheimer hot after the Vuelta and the team riding for him in the Road Race he might be more focused on that.