La Vuelta Femenina 2023 Favourites
Host Country: Spain
Stages: 7
Time Trials: 1
Flat Stages: 3
Mid Mountain Stages: 1
High Mountain Stages: 2
Mountain Finishes: 2
The first edition of what should be an exceedingly fun annual women's cycling stage race. We'll fill in more details on each stage as we find time, but we strongly expect Annemiek Van Vluetan (AVV) to finally show her climbing form over the three mountainous stages. Doesn't mean she'll win, but she'll probably show up.
Despite Vollering cleaning up the classics we think that Van Vluetan's general classification consistency will allow her to take at least 1/2/3. Juliette Labous with Team DSM, or Gaia Realini given the amount of climbing are also fair shouts for performing well.
All four types of odds for multi-day stage races (Outright, Head 2 Head overall, and Stages + Stage Head 2 Head) are being offered which is great. There's not a ton of information yet on the women's peloton, so if you have insider knowledge or are willing to dig deep, you could make some solid cash in our opinion.
Value Picks
We're not entirely sure of AVV's form to be completely honest. Yes, there's more hills, and yes she's more a GC candidate, but she's never really shown it this season. Combine that with her short odds and she's definitely not a value pick.
Stage 7 has a brutal climb which could make or break her GC, but there's a lot of risk there.
So we're thinking that Katarzyna Niewiadoma, Juliette Labous and Silvia Persico have a real shot. Realini will perform well, but her odds are too short to be value.
Stage 1 (TTT)
Our value pick is EF Education-Tibco, they have strong ITT'er with Georgia Williams and they have long enough odds that they could do it. Unlikely though, and we've made a smaller bet given they're not allowing each way bets on Bet365.
Betway is offering E/W bets @ 1/5 though - so might be more worthwhile there.
Team Jumbo Visma look hot also 🔥
Stage 2
The one climb which is 7km @ 1.3% isn't really a climb. But hey, I guess that's what category four climbs are four. If you don't happen to know how the categorization of climbs work, feel free to read out guide here:
Pro Cycling Bets
We expect Team SDX Worx to control, with a bunch sprint at the end and Vollering to capture some bonus points.
Stage 3
One sprint with time bonuses 22km from the finish. Bunch sprint with Vollering or maybe they'll let Marianne Vos or Charlotte Kool take it.
Stage 4
Category 3 climb of 4km @ 4.6% from the finish. Which isn't really the hard part, the hard part seems to be the barely legal descent. That descent seems a tad aggressive no? A good descender should win.
Stage 5
AVV may make a solo break for it on this Category 1 climb, and try and gain as much time as she can. It's 80k from the finish but we've seen here try it before.
Stage 6
A category two climb of 6.4km @ 5.3% and then another category two of 7.6km @ 4.8%. There's about 15km of semi flat after the last climb though which is short enough that a break over the second climb might be able to hold on.
Stage 7
The make or break it stage for AVV in our opinion. She might be able to gain enough time, but most likely not with Realini really showing her form lately.
