Details

Published on Thursday, 27 August 2020 12:50

TDF 2020 White Jersey Preview

Like last year, it looks like Egan Bernal just has to finish the race to win this jersey. If you think he's maybe not going to be good enough to overhaul Roglic, then taking him to win the white jersey might be a safer bet!

Like the KOM jersey, this jersey was also introduced in 1975, and this competition has had various criteria over the years as to who were eligible to win it, but it is now just open to anyone who is under 26 years of age.

Since the young rider classification was introduced, it has been won by 38 different cyclists. Of those, seven also won the yellow jersey during their careers (Fignon, LeMond, Pantani, Ullrich, Contador, Schleck and Bernal). 

On four occasions a rider has won the young rider classification and the general classification in the same year — Fignon in '83, Ullrich in '97, Contador in '07, Schleck in '10 and Bernal last year - pretty illustrious company to be joining. The only cyclist to win the young rider classification and the mountains classification in the same year is Nairo Quintana in '13.

The only cyclists to win the young rider classification in multiple Tours are Nairo Quintana (two wins), Marco Pantani (two wins), Jan Ullrich (three wins - also finishing first or second on the general classification on all three of these occasions) and Andy Schleck (three wins). 

11/8 shot Egan Bernal could only finish 2nd in 2018 to 5/2 second favourite Pierre Latour, but that was understandable seeing as he was dragging Froome and Thomas' ass up and down mountains for three weeks. It looked a foregone conclusion last year that Bernal would take white, with Enric Mas the only creditable opponent it seemed, but he will have a tougher battle on his hands this year with the young guns from UAE Emirates, EF and possibly even his own team-mate Sivakov. 

Egan Bernal is actually the 8th youngest rider in the race, at 23 years and 228 days, the youngest being Maxime Chevalier at just 21 years and 106 days. Then you have Mathie Burgaudeau of TDE who is 21 years and 286 days and Tadej Pogacar at 21 years and 343 days. Other notable riders who are still withing the 'Young Riders' under 26 bracket are Sepp Kuss, Enric Mas, Wout Van Aert, Dani Martinez, Sergio Higuita, Harold Tajeda and David Gaudu. 

Egan Bernal - 8/13

I'm going to repeat most of what I wrote last year, as there's not much difference in my thought pattern! He's more or less the same price too, 8/13 vs 1/2 last year, a little bit more value, but that's because he has more of a cahllenge this year from Pogacar. 

There's not much more I can say about Bernal besides what I've already said about him in the overall preview. I think he will go very close to winning this race, and even if he finishes behind Roglic, Pinot, Dumoulin, Carapaz and Buchmann he will still win the Young Riders competition. 

He will be looked after expertly by Ineos, he will have Carapaz, Sivakov, Kwiato, Castroviejo and Amador with him on the mountains and he is very capable of winning a stage or two, taking time gaps and time bonuses too. He will also go better than most of his rivals in the final TT, bar maybe Pogacar, who looks like his biggest danger of course. 

It's really hard to see how Bernal can lose this, other than if he suffers an accident or injury, or unless his back injury is actually worse than we know and he struggles early on and loses time. Ineos could then switch to Carapaz and Bernal loses time to go stage hunting later in the race.. But I think that's a low possibility.

Tadej Pogacar - 5/2

Almost two years his junior, the incredibly talented Tadej Pogacar took the young riders' jersey in the Vuelta last year by almost 2 minutes from Miguel Angel Lopez, with some sensational performances. It goes to show just how fancied these two riders are to be the two to fight it out for the jersey that the odds are saying there is a 93.6% chance of one of the two of them winning it. 65% for Bernal and 28.6% for Pogacar. 

LIke with the overall preview though, it looks like Pogacar will have to beat Bernal in order to claim the jersey, and I am not sure he will be able to. It might be that it will take Bernal's back injury or some other misfortune to Bernal for him to win it, but there is of course the possibility that he just comes here with fantastic legs and actually starts to take time off him on some stages with late attacks when Rogla and Bernal start to look at each other. 

I think he might be happy to bide his time, look for opportunities to take a stage win, but ultimately try to finish as high as he can on the GC - I don't think he's coming here with white jersey ambitions necessarily. 

Daniel Martinez - 7/1

Another little Colombian with big legs and a big heart. EF have added another potential superstar to their roster alongside Sergio Higuita, and Martinez has already shown us what he is capable of with his win in the Dauphiné. 

Ok, call it fortuitious if you like, with Bernal, Roglic and Buchmann all crashing out, but he did what he had to do and held off Pogacar, Pinot and the rest. Pogacar only lost to him though because he suffered from the hunger knock on stage 2 and lost a lot of time - if he hadn't, he would have won overall instead of Martinez. 

A super time-triallist, he has also finished 2nd in the Tour of Colombia and 3rd in the Tour of California, but he didn't have a great Vuelta last year, his best placing on a road stage was 22nd and he finished down in 41st place, over 2 hours behind Roglic. That puts me right off him, I'm not sure he's improved that much. 

Pavel Sivakov - 14/1

All depends on how Bernal does. If he struggles, then Sivakov is released. If he doesn't, then Sivakov will always be behind him. Capable of a top 3 or 4 placing in this competition though, but seeing as the bookies are going win only, not much point in risking backing him. 

Enric Mas Nicolau - 16/1

7/1 second favourite last year behind Bernal, he never really challenged him and finished almost an hour behind him in 3rd spot. He struggled in some of the mountain stages and never really challenged.

Enric Mas is over two years older than Bernal, and that is one thing he has going in his favour, a bit more experience. He also has two Vueltas under his belt, including 2018's when he finished an incredible 2nd on GC at just 23 years of age, and with it also the the best young rider (if the Vuelta awarded such a prize) - hence the 7/1 quote on him for last year.. 

He has since switched to Movistar and just doesn't seem to have the same magic bottles he had at DQS, he's performances have been pretty anonymous so far this year. 20th in Andalucia, 35th in Burgos and 20th in the Dauphiné, 22' 33" behind Martinez, he never really got in a blow at all, getting dropped on all the mountain stages. It doesn't bode well for his chances here. 

David Gaudu - 50/1

12/1 for this last year, 50/1 this year.. that's a big jump considering he finished 2nd in the competition behind Bernal, the only rider to come within 30 minutes of Bernal, improving steadily through the Tour to overhaul Mas for 2nd place.

Winner of the Tour de l'Avenir in 2016, Gaudu has been one to watch for a few years now and followed that up in 2017 with a win in the Tour de l'Ain, winning a stage to Oyonnax alongside his mentor Pinot, and an impressive 9th in Fleche-Wallone and 5th in Milan Torino. 

He started the season well with 10th in the Algarve and 4th in the UAE Tour, just 15" off the podium spot, he was one of the few riders able to go with Adam Yates and Pogacar on Jabel Hafeet and threw in a few attacks as well trying to get away. Since lockdown he's raced Burgos and Limousin, not really showing much, but they were just training races. The thing is, no matter how good he's feeling, unless something happens to Pinot, he's going to be working for him, and will end up losing time once his turn is finished in the mountains. I can't see him higher than 3rd this year. 

Others

And then you have the likes of Lennard Kamna (40/1), Sergio Higuita (50/1) and Harold Tejada at 80/1, but I can't really see them troubling the top two guys in the betting. 

But it's almost impossible to look past Bernal as your winner, only an 'incident' can stop him I think from taking another of what could be quite a few white jerseys. Pogacar is sure to be his biggest rival, maybe if a bookie offers a 'without Bernal' market he might be worth a shot if he's not shorter than about 4/5. With no e/w betting available there isn't much point in backing any of the others, unless you think something will happen to the top two in the betting, and that's unlikely.

Last year we put him in a double with Sagan for Green to gain a little bit of value, so far there are no doubles available with the bookies, and even then I'd be hesitant to back Sagan with him this year. 8/13 is a fair price I think, it might be good insurance in case Rogla does beat him, but don't go too big, you don't want to lose too much on our overall bet and this bet should things go tits up for Egan.  

Recommendation:

2pts on Egan Bernal at 8/13, or maybe better on Betfair, not much liquidity there right now.