La Vuelta Stage 7 Predictions: More fireworks to come after O’Connor magic

As the cycling world continues to get its head around the astonishing ride of Ben O’Connor on Thursday’s Stage 6 of La Vuelta a Espana, it’s on to one of the more straightforward assignments left in the race in Stage 7 on Friday (live on Eurosport 1 from 13:30 BST, highlights at 20:00).

The 180.5km parcours from Archidona to Cordoba has just a single categorised climb, the Cat 2 Alto del 14%, which comes 33km from home in a stage which ought to be won by one of the leading sprinters. My La Vuelta Stage 7 predictions will include some familiar names.

La Vuelta Betting Odds

As he so often has been so far at La Vuelta, Wout van Aert is right in the picture at the top of the stage winner market. The Belgian, who currently has the green jersey as the leader of the points classification, is 7/4 to come first in Cordoba.

His main rival for the points crown is Kaden Groves, who is arguably the best pure sprinter in the event, and the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider is 5/2 to record a second stage win following on from his stage-two success.

Behind them, Pavel Bittner, who on Wednesday beat Van Aert by the tightest of margins, is 10/1, with Corbin Strong available at 12/1 and Jhonatan Narvaez 16/1.

Cycling Odds

Between now and the end of La Vuelta, this stage will only be pipped by the individual time-trial on the 21st and final day of the tour when it comes to relative ease. On a fairly unforgiving route around Spain, this is about as flat as the riders are going to find the terrain from here on in.

The Cat 2 climb at the Alto del 14% is not so difficult that it should leave the lead-out trains scrambling for their sprinters. The approach to Cordoba ought to be controlled by the likes of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Visma-Lease a Bike and dsm-firmenich PostNL.

That will leave us will a shoot-out between Van Aert, Groves and Bittner, with others left jostling for position. It might be in the interest of some of the other sprint hopes to get onto one of the main contenders’ wheels and look to out-think them late on.

We already saw Bittner benefit on Wednesday from Van Aert catching Groves out with an early, long sprint for the line, the Czech outlasting the green jersey by a matter of milliseconds.

And the best chance for anyone outside of those three will be to learn from just that kind of scenario.

Kaden Groves @ 5/2

I’ve been burnt too many times already in this race by hoping Van Aert will find some blistering form at the right moment. But in truth he has the odd hole in his sprint tactics, as his loss on the line to Bittner in Seville proved.

To that end, I don’t think he’s going to catch out Groves again. The Australian will be looking to fight back after being caught out on Wednesday, and I can see him getting some measure of revenge with a 5/2 winner at an implied probability of 28.6%.

Pavel Bittner E/W @ 10/1

Lightning ought not strike twice, but I like the cut of Bittner’s jib, and I can see him fancy himself as a bit of a Biniam Girmay here.

The Eritrean was the surprise of the Tour de France earlier this summer when he won three stages and rode his way to the green jersey off the back of expert sprinting in a race in which he had initially been identified as Intermarche-Wanty’s main lead-out man.

Similarly, I think Bittner could carve himself out as a bit of an underdog sprint king in a field which doesn’t feature many of the World Tour fastest riders due to the terrain involved around Spain this time around.

Another shot at glory, then, after that first ever Grand Tour win? I don’t think it’s out of the question.

You can read all our latest Cycling Betting Tips here.