Tour de San Luis 2016 – Stage 7 Preview

San Luis – San Luis 119.6km

The race ends with a trip around the streets of San Luis. We have one climb, after just 15.7km and then a descent into town. From there we begin 5 laps of a street circuit. It does contain a little climb, but this is a day for the sprinters.

This stage was going to be another win for Fernando Gaviria, but he broke his arm in the stage 5 crash. A real shame for the young man but it does open the door to the other quicks here.

In reality, there are two riders much faster than the rest: Peter Sagan and Elia Viviani.

Sagan was 2nd to Gaviria in stage 2 and was pushed into 4th on stage 3. He crashed hard on Friday but seemed to avoid any type of injury. That means he will have one more chance of taking his first win in the rainbow jersey. Sagan doesn’t strike anyone as a rider who lacks confidence, but even he would like an early win, to avoid any talk of the curse. It took him until the 16th March to win his first race in 2015. This stage represents an enormous chance. Make no mistake, he would have had no chance against Gaviria. Going against him is a total lack of a lead-out man. It looks like he’ll have to come around Viviani. Does he have the speed to do so?

Elia Viviani “won” the bunch sprint on Friday, for 4th place. He finished behind Sagan and Gaviria on stage 2 and didn’t feature the next day. In a previous preview I did claim that Viviani is faster than Sagan and I stand by that observation. Also, in his favour is the ability of Jakub Mareczko. The youngster is a very fast sprinter but will act as lead-out man. He should be the fastest number 2 in the race and be able to hit the front from 500m. That would mean Viviani would be in the perfect position, he would just have to finish it off. The Italian usually starts the season well, mainly due to track work he does throughout the winter.

It would be a big surprise if these two riders didn’t finish 1 and 2. That means we have a spot on the podium available. Looking to fight it out will be Eduard Grosu, Lucas Haedo, Mauro Richeze, Francesco Chicchi, Marco Canola, Roberto Ferrari, Travis McCabe and Yannick Martinez. I think it will come too early for Max Richeze, who also crashed on Friday.

Of these riders, Roberto Ferrari really should be the fastest. However, the man with the fast name did not have a good 2015. Instead, it will be Eduard Grosu who completes the podium, even though he went for a mountain breakaway on Saturday!

Prediction Time

Sagan v Viviani, who would you pick?

I go Viviani.

Sagan will be left looking like Sandra Dee;)