Spain 2021 – Velogames Round Up

I’m always sad when grand tour racing draws to a close for another year, and we’ve been treated to some wonderful battles and great stories over the last few months. I’ve finally managed to pull myself away from the fantastic racing we’ve been treated to at the Tour of Britain to properly round up the final Velogames grand tour competition of the year, and not forget about it like last year. The funny thing is, when rounding up the competition at the Tour, I mentioned that yet another 8 credit back-up overall contender managed to score well and it’s happened again here at La Vuelta! Clearly that’s the theme of the year and might make us all think a little more laterally next year and search for those alternate race scenarios. So for the final time this year, let’s sum up all the categories and go over the last grand tour dream team of 2021.

all rounders

1. Primož Roglič – 3403
2. Enric Mas – 2267
3. Adam Yates – 1611
4. Egan Bernal – 1486
5. Felix Großschartner – 1031

For the second year in a row, it’s a 26 and a 12 credit rider who prove to be the best combo (dream team wise) in the all rounder category, and it’s also the second year in a row where it’s Roglič and Mas who top score as well. Roglič was rightly the favourite and backed it up with a strong display of 4 stage wins and four other 2nd place finishes. An imperious race from the 31 year old and great points for the 76.8% of players who chose him. Enric Mas continued with his strong 2021 season and was often an equal to Roglič on the climbs, but just lacked the kick to take a win. The Ineos duo are next up finishing 4th and 6th on GC and this was Yates’ best grand tour performance since the 2016 Tour de France. It was a difficult conundrum to try and select the best Ineos rider here, which is proven with Yates being the 4th most selected rider from the team at only 15.6% ownership. By contrast, Bernal was the 2nd most selected rider with nearly half of teams taking the Colombian. Last on this list is the German Felix Großschartner who once again had a very consistent race without being flashy. Five top 10 results and a 10th place overall sum up a decent race and proved to be good cheap back-up for the 6.1% of players who believed in him. Just missing out on the top 5 was David de la Cruz, who did go for GC and repeated his 2020 performance with another 7th place. Two others who didn’t quite have the race they wanted were Aleksandr Vlasov and Alejandro Valverde. The former admitted himself that he didn’t have the legs and also suffered a bad crash on stage 17 to Lagos de Covadonga, which ultimately ended his race. Valverde’s race was even more tragic as he crashed out on stage 7 with a fractured collarbone after he was 4th on GC. That particular incident was really hard to watch and I hope he has a speedy recovery.

Climbers

1. Jack Haig – 1720
2. Miguel Ángel López – 1385
3. Sepp Kuss – 1290
4. Gino Mäder – 1017
5. Romain Bardet – 978

This category was the usual minefield of guessing race objectives and rider form where the three most expensive riders were among the worst scorers. Richard Carapaz was clearly a little fatigued after a tough Tour de France and Olympic gold, and left the race after doing a good job for Bernal and Yates. Mikel Landa was a more confusing case as he once again came into a grand tour in excellent form and the team were fully behind him, but he just didn’t have the legs in the end. Fingers crossed for more fortune next year, because he’s really due a good grand tour result. The other rider to suffer some disappointment was Hugh Carthy who was really up for this race, but couldn’t repeat his 2020 heroics and lost time early on. He left the race on stage 7 and EF are yet to reveal why his race didn’t quite go as planned. I’m sure there’s someone out there in the know and I’ve probably missed some key news somewhere down the line. Moving on to the riders who did do well and we have a fantastic redemption story for Jack Haig. He was one of the riders to crash out of the Tour de France on that horrible stage 3 finish, but he bounced back beautifully here to finish on the last step of the podium after the race of his life. Six top 5 finishes compliment his brilliant score for the 8.4% of people who didn’t quite believe in Bahrain’s plan A. Miguel Ángel López had one of the most bizarre moments I can remember on a grand tour when he abandoned on the penultimate stage sitting 3rd in the GC. Before that he was having a great race and even won on the brand new summit finish two days earlier. There’s possibly more to this story than is being reported, but I’ll leave it to the journalists to try and pick it apart. Below those guys we have Sepp Kuss who rode brilliantly for Roglič and recorded his best grand tour finish to date. Gino Mäder has had a great break out year and even managed to lift the young riders jersey off the shoulders of Bernal on stage 20. No mean feat for the 24 year old and I hope we see more of him fighting for overall victories in the years to come. Last but not least here is Romain Bardet who was a key component is saving Team DSM’s season after winning stage 14. He was looking okay in the GC until he crashed on stage 5, but he recovered quickly and did extremely well to win a tough stage and finish 2nd in the king of the mountains competition.

SPrinters

1. Fabio Jakobsen – 1420
2. Michael Matthews – 982
3. Matteo Trentin – 980
4. Alberto Dainese – 966
5. Jasper Philipsen – 784

I mentioned before the race that Fabio Jakobsen looked the best bet amongst the sprinters, but I wasn’t expecting three stage wins and the green jersey! He took beautiful advantage from the change in the points classification to a Tour de France system and from the increase in sprinting opportunities. Even with the change, Roglič still came second in the points classification by the way. Great to see the Dutchman return to grand tour racing in such style. Behind the Quick Step sprinter and only separated by two points are Michael Matthews and Matteo Trentin. Matthews came here for stage wins so must be disappointed that the closest he managed were two 3rds. Still a good race from him though, and Trentin achieved his score by taking advantage of reduced groups and breakaways in the 2nd and 3rd weeks, only missing out on a win to Florian Sénéchal on stage 13. It was also a very impressive grand tour debut for 23 year old Italian Alberto Dainese who recorded five top 5s including one 2nd place. A brilliant return for the tiny 0.9% of players who picked him. DSM aren’t flush with great sprinting pedigree so it’ll be interesting to see how this guy develops next year. Bringing up the rear of this top 5 is Jasper Philipsen. Fresh from his exploits at the Tour de France, he steam rolled into this race with two early stage wins before leaving the race in the 2nd week. There weren’t many points on offer below this and the one main absentee from this list is Arnaud Démare who didn’t manage to pick up the win for Groupama – FDJ. He only featured in the top 5 once where he lost out on a win to Jakobsen on stage 4. So in terms of the big races, it’s a year to forget for the Frenchman.

unclassed

1. Magnus Cort – 1254
2. Michael Storer – 855
3. Odd Christian Eiking – 733
4. Clément Champoussin – 732
5. Andrea Bagioli – 706

What more can be said about Magnus Cort’s race that hasn’t already been said. He seems made for La Vuelta. He’s achieved at least one stage win at three of his four participations, but this year has surpassed anything he’s accomplished to date. He has the highest ownership in the top 10 scorers in this category at 11.5%. Michael Storer by contrast has only 3.4% ownership and was a rider who did carry his recent form into the race by picking up two stage wins and the KOM jersey. A brilliant race from the 24 year old Australian and I’m looking forward to seeing him develop in the next few years. Odd Christian Eiking takes the title of the most valuable 4 credit rider and scored really nicely for someone hanging on to a decent GC position. He took his chance from a breakaway on stage 10, took the race lead and held it until stage 17. Intermarché – Wanty – Gobert have been really exciting to watch in grand tours this year and Eiking took full advantage of their attacking style. I’ve been waiting for Clément Champoussin to have a break out race and it finally happened here for the 23 year old. Seems I was a race too early when I picked him for the Giro, but the 2.5% of players who grabbed him here got it spot on. His stage win steal on the second to last day was legendary, popped up out of nowhere when the favourites were looking at each other and powered home for the win. Andrea Bagioli is the highest placed more expensive unclassed rider in this ranking. It was a really attacking race from the young Italian who made it to 8th in the points classification thanks to intermediate sprints and 4 good stage finishes. The new 10 credit riders served their purpose by making it into 35.8% and 21% of teams for Pidcock and Schachmann respectively. Sadly, Schachmann was not at the races and Pidcock hadn’t recovered from his post-Olympic celebrations. It’ll be interesting to see if George continues with the 10 creditors next year or if these guys were just an exception.

Dream Team

It’s a really interesting selection of riders for this one, but also fairly easy to work out as it’s just the highest scoring riders in each category, no tweaking necessary. I still find it bizarre when it just fits so perfectly. I have stats for the Velogames grand tours going back to 2013 and this has never happened in La Vuelta before. It happened last year in the Giro when the dream team was spectacularly cheap and the last time it was a perfect 100 credits and with all the top scorers was the 2017 Tour. So here it is and well done if you selected any of these guys, some were more obvious than others.

Rider	Category	Price	Points
Primož Roglič	All Rounder	26	3403
Enric Mas	All Rounder	12	2267
Jack Haig	Climber	8	1720
Miguel Ángel López	Climber	12	1385
Fabio Jakobsen	Sprinter	10	1420
Magnus Cort	Unclassed	6	1254
Michael Storer	Unclassed	6	855
Odd Christian Eiking	Unclassed	4	733
Adam Yates	Wildcard/All Rounder	16	1611

DREAM TEAM – Total Cost = 100 Total Points = 14648
BEST TEAM – Total Cost = 100 Total Points = 13021

The winning team had the best four in each category plus Mas, Yates, and Bardet. López keeps his place in the dream team despite leaving the race on the penultimate stage and he’s the only rider in this team who didn’t finish the race. In The Pelotonian League it was alper who took the win with their team ikiyaka, and they came 60th overall! They took a two sprinter combo of Jakobsen and Matthews with good unclassed riders and the unbeatable Roglič-Mas partnership. The only weak link was Carthy, but then I picked him too. Thanks to everyone who took part this year! I’ll be back next year with more guides and opinion pieces. I plan on expanding a lot and potentially getting started on some video content as well. We’ll see how it goes.