Velogame XXIII – Round Up

With the final grand tour of the year right around the corner and the start list beginning to trickle in, I thought it best to round off the Tour and drop a few comments on which teams need what from La Vuelta. In simple terms, it was another repeat of the Giro, with one contender smashing it out of the park and another 8 point secondary GC rider stepping up to the plate in fine style. Let’s round up all the categories and as always we’ll finish up with the dream team.

All rounders

1. Tadej Pogačar – 2906
2. Jonas Vingegaard – 2228
3. Wilco Kelderman – 1201
4. Ben O’Connor – 1187
5. Wout Poels – 1064

This was billed as a straight head-to-head between Pogačar and Roglič and whilst this sadly didn’t happen thanks to some extreme misfortune early on, Vingegaard stepped up beautifully in only his second grand tour to take the race to Pogačar. As expected, it was the young Slovenian who had a great race. We should all take note that he has won three stages in all three grand tours he’s raced to date and has won the overall twice. Is he just a must pick for the future regardless of competition? Vingegaard became the second 8 point back up GC man this year to finish second in the race after Caruso did likewise in the Giro. I don’t like predicting that anyone will pull out with illness or injury, but sometimes the gamble is worth it and well done to the 0.8% of players who took the punt. Behind the front two there is a massive gap back to 3rd and below. Of those guys, I’m most impressed with Ben O’Connor. A glorious stage win was backed up with a strong showing for 4th on GC. Kelderman did what Kelderman does and ghosted himself to a top 5. He was let down on points a wee bit because his best stage result was 4th with four other top ten finishes. Poels had a much better race than I was expecting and was only bested in the king of the mountains by the imperious Pogačar. Quite a few other riders in the all round category had decent, but not flashy races. The notable absentees from the top of the rankings are the aforementioned Roglič who was incredibly unlucky in that first week. Thomas also had his share of mishaps including a dislocated shoulder and López was another who didn’t make it through the first week unscathed.

Climbers

1. Richard Carapaz – 1524
2. Julian Alaphilippe – 1073
3. David Gaudu – 867
4. Guillaume Martin – 791
5. Sergio Higuita – 737

The climbers were done a little dirty in this race with only three summit finishes meaning points were very hard to come by. Carapaz was one of the only contenders here who could have a go on different types of stages, and his points were boosted by his 3rd place finish. Alaphilippe picked up most of his points in the first week. I was spot on that he’d score good points, but they wouldn’t be up there with the best. He just happens to be 2nd in this ranking thanks to the low scoring average in this category. Gaudu rallied in the final week, but his race was mostly undone with illness on the Ventoux stage. He has it in him to go well in grand tours and hopefully he has a problem free race next year. Guillaume Martin achieved his top 10 on GC, but only one top 5 on a stage. Higuita was in the hunt for a few stages, but his best result was a 3rd. I don’t think there was anyone who disappointed from the climbers category. The ones who are missing from the top include Michael Woods, who’s tilt at the polka-dots came up short and he didn’t finish the race. Jack Haig was on for a really good race after 4th on the opening stage, but was caught up in the carnage of stage 3. Simon Yates was aiming for success in the Pyrenees and he too would suffer from a crash on the gravel roads near Carcassonne.

Sprinters

1. Wout Van Aert – 1824
2. Mark Cavendish – 1510
3. Jasper Philipsen – 1261
4. Michael Matthews – 1230
5. Sonny Colbrelli – 1069

Wout Van Aert will likely never be 16 credits again. This is the new Sagan, expect him to be 18 or 20 credits at next year’s Tour. He’ll likely have a GC leader to protect as well so that’s assist points to go with the multitude he picks up on all kinds of terrain. He’s just an obscene talent and it’ll be hard not to pick him in the future. I’m so pleased for Cavendish, a green jersey and four stage wins to equal the Merckx record of 34 stage wins at the Tour. I was hoping he’d have a great race, but didn’t expect anything like this. Just goes to show, sentimental picks can sometimes pay off. Jasper Philipsen makes it into 3rd spot and it’s so well deserved. He was so close to several stage wins, and he was finally given the green light to sprint by the team and backed by 0.3% of players to record a great score. I’m not entirely sure what Matthews did for his large points total. He just had a quiet, but efficient race and would have been in pole position for green had something happened to Cavendish. A lot was said about Colbrelli and his goals before the race, but he didn’t quite live up to the Dauphiné hype. He seemed to pick up most of his green jersey points at the intermediates and not feature much in the bunch sprints, as well as almost winning a mountain stage on top of that. So all in all, a very confusing race from him. Just missing out on a top 5 here was Mathieu van der Poel, who left after nearly accruing 1000 points in one week. Here’s to seeing what he can do if he stays for the full three weeks. Further down the rankings we have the unfortunate trio of Sagan, Ewan, and Démare. All were the victims of crashes and would have been hoping for much better races, but they weren’t the only ones in a very turbulent opening few stages.

unclassed

1. Mattia Cattaneo – 953
2. Matej Mohorič – 864
3. Franck Bonnamour – 587
4. Kasper Asgreen – 568
5. Stefan Küng – 494

A massive points total from Cattaneo thanks to several top 10s and 2nd place on the stage to Tignes along with a 12th on GC, a great return. Mohorič also lit up the race and recorded two fabulous stage wins along the way. 0.5% of people took a punt on the 4 pointer Bonnamour and were not disappointed. He was part of several breakaways and got himself into the top 10 on stages on four occasions. Asgreen and Küng are the two time trialists here and both also featured in one other road stage between them. Politt and Mørkøv were two 4 pointers not far away from this top 5, the former won a brilliant stage from a breakaway and the latter was Cav’s leadout man ending in the top 10 twice including one 2nd place where he appeared to slow up before the line so Cav could take the win. That might not have been what actually happened, but you never know. Incredible teamwork if it’s true. No real losers here, Hirschi was the only rider with a large ownership not scoring well, but as the only 8 pointer you can see why 25.8% of players picked him. He just had bigger fish to fry with a certain Slovenia to look after.

Dream Team

I feel most have probably seen the dream team by now so I’ll keep this fairly brief. With the points boost to stage results still here, but not quite as severe as last year, it seems it’s still more important then ever to pick the overall winner in your team and the unclassed are much more valuable than they used to be. The points gaps between the best performers and the decent performers in any category can still be absolutely massive. So well done if you managed to nail it because it’s very challenging to hit that sweet spot.

Rider	Category	Price	Points
Tadej Pogačar	All Rounder	24	2906
Jonas Vingegaard	All Rounder	8	2228
Richard Carapaz	Climber	16	1524
David Gaudu	Climber	10	867
Wout Van Aert	Sprinter	16	1824
Mattia Cattaneo	Unclassed	6	953
Matej Mohorič	Unclassed	6	864
Franck Bonnamour	Unclassed	4	587
Mark Cavendish	Wildcard/Sprinter	10	1510

DREAM TEAM – Total Cost = 98 Total Points = 13263
BEST TEAM – Total Cost =100 Total Points = 11602

The winning team took the title with an All Rounders combo of Pogačar, Vingegaard, and O’Connor with the strong climbers Carapaz and Alaphilippe backing them up. In The Pelotonian league it was Wild Stallions owned by Fatai, who took the win and 49th overall!

Pre-Vuelta Form Guide

So before the Vuelta competition goes live this week here’s where the teams stand and who’ll be desperate to achieve good results in the last grand tour of the year. Well first off, the good news is no world team is still searching for a win this season. That means there’s extra onus on the three pro teams coming here who only have one pro series win between them all season and no world tour level win. It’s not an enviable task though, only two pro teams have managed a win at the highest level this season and they’re Alpecin-Fenix and EOLO-Kometa. In terms of grand tour stage wins though, there are a few gaps in the palmarès of certain world teams who’ll definitely be looking to correct that at La Vuelta. I think all four teams who feature on this list are a bit of a surprise, but none more so than Movistar, who were in this position last year and it was Marc Soler who clawed them out of that particular hole. With the additions they made this year, it’ll be almost criminal if they come out of their home grand tour without some sort of success. The other three teams on this list are Astana – PremierTech, Team DSM, and Groupama – FDJ. So there you go, very much looking forward to my favourite race of the year and the last chance at fantasy grand tour success for 2021. Stay tuned for a guide on the game when it goes live in the next couple of days.