Stage 2: Buñol to Moncofa (118.3 km)
When: Monday, April 29
Where to watch: 🇬🇧🇪🇺 Discovery +/Eurosport, 🇺🇸 Peacock, 🇨🇦 FloBikes, 🇦🇺 SBS
When to watch: 🇬🇧 14:30 BST, 🇪🇺 15:30 CEST, 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 9:30 EDT, 🇦🇺 23:45 AEST
Stage type: Reduced sprint
What to expect: A reduced bunch will come to the line, and the fastest sprinter (who can make it over the climb) takes the stage.
Stage summary:
The second stage from Buñol to Moncofa is on the short side, at only 118.3 km, and includes only one official categorized climb. The Category 3 starts 70 km into the stage and is 5.9 km long averaging 4.3%. After the descent, the peloton has a further 31-ish km to go to the finish.
The opening kilometres of the stage are somewhat downhill, which will make an early breakaway challenging. It will not stop the attacks, and a break might go later in the stage, but with the climb placement, it will be hard for anyone to get enough distance before the ascent to make a difference in the end.
With a substantial amount of road left after the climb, it’s unlikely the ascent will determine any significant shifts in the peloton. Several riders will lose contact on the climb, but some will have ample time to catch back on.
Any team with a sprinter who can make it over the climb will put pressure on the peloton once they’re down the descent, the most likely team is of course Visma-Lease a Bike, the team of Marianne Vos. Should Charlotte Kool (DSM Firmenich-PostNL) not make it over the climb with the peloton, a few teams will want to make sure she can’t catch up. Liv AlUla Jayco, Lidl-Trek, EF Education-Cannondale, and Movistar all have fast women who would benefit from Kool not being in the bunch.
When it comes to the general classification, the top ten is separated by milliseconds so intermediate sprints could get interesting, and bonus seconds at the line might see the jersey pass hands. Vos sits tenth in the GC after the TTT, last year she wore the red jersey after finishing second in the second stage and held the lead until stage 5 when Demi Vollering won the stage and took the jersey.
As it stands, the red jersey is up for grabs as if there hadn’t been a TTT for three teams (Lidl-Trek, Visma-Lease a Bike and SD Worx-Protime). Lidl-Trek might want to keep it in the team, but Realini will not be fighting to keep it from now to the end, she doesn’t need to, her terrain is coming later. Vos will have her eye on it, but so will other riders. Marlen Reusser, Anna Henderson, Eva van Agt, Mischa Bredewold, and Blanka Vas are all within a second of red and would be able to push the race in their favour just to pull on the leader’s jersey for a day or two before they are in full domestique mode for their leaders.
My pick: It has to be Vos. Not only because of her form at the moment, her win at the Amstel Gold Race recently, but also because she won a similar stage (stage 4) last year.
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