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Published on Wednesday, 03 July 2019 00:33

TDF 2019 - Favourites

A look at the main favourites chances

Last year we had the carry-on of whether Froome would be allowed ride or not, affecting the betting and the analysis of the race. This year, all the pre-Tour drama has centered around Froome once again, after his dramatic exit from the Dauphiné.

The withdrawal of Froome leaves us with basically joint favourites for the race from the same team around 3/1 each. Coupling them together basically gives you even money that one of the Skineos riders will win the Tour, so is that the strategy to employ to double your money at the end of three weeks? Or who of the other favourites can take them on? 

Geraint Thomas - Team Ineos - 5/2 Best Price (Betfair) 

This time last year I was writing that Thomas not only has to beat all the other favourites in order to win the Tour, he had to beat his team leader that was going for record-equalling 5th Tour de France title.

As it turned out, Thomas didn't really have to worry about an under-form Froome, who in the end just scraped on to the podium thanks to the penultimate stage TT and a disappointing showing by Primoz Roglic. 

This year he doesn't have to worry about Froome at all, instead it's his 22 1/2 year old team-mate Egan Bernal who looks like he could pose the biggest threat to him. 

Last year Thomas came in to the race in superb form, having won the Dauphiné in impressive style, having finished 2nd in the GC in the Algarve, 3rd in Tirreno and winning the Dauphiné. He also won the British TT championships before heading to France and hit the ground running in the opening week and never looked back. After moving up to 6th on just the second stage, he moved up to 3rd after the TTT on stage 3 and after stage 6 to the Mur de Bretagne he was 2nd and never went lower. 

He displayed power in the mountains, and aggressiveness to ride away from Froome and the rest when the opportunities presented themselves. He really took control of the race following his double stage victories on stages 11 to La Rosiere and 12 to Alpe d'Huez, By the end of that stage he held a 1'39" lead over Froome and 1'50" lead over Dumoulin, with the rest over 2 minutes down, and it was as good as over. As much as people expected Froome to pull off the miracle comeback, like at the Giro, it never happened. 

This year though we have Thomas in a very different sort of place, having crashed out of the Tour de Suisse just a few weeks ago. He has raced 500kms less this year than last year, and that was a low 3,780kms, and he has not won a race yet. He DNF'ed Tirreno, finished 40th in Itzulia but did better in Romandie where he finished 3rd overall, thanks to a 5th and 3rd place stage finish. He did ok in the TT in the TDS to finish 13th, but more was expected of him, but he was sitting in 8th place at the time of his crash, 6" ahead of Bernal. 

Of course his plan was always to peak for the Tour, and we could well have seen him coming to top form in the mountains in the TDS when the roads got steeper. It could well have been that Bernal would have been working for him on stage 6 to Flumserberg and he'd have caught Toelhoek instead of holding back as long as he did, and Thomas could have kicked on to stage victory. Same on stage 7 that Bernal won. We'll never know.

The only injuries he seemed to have suffered though from the crash was a cut to his face that needed stitches, so yes, he's missed a few good days racing in the mountains, but as he put it himself, a few hard training rides in between should get him close to where he should be. He also has 6 stages more or less to ride himself in to a bit more form before they hit La Planche. He has a super squad with him, as we know, and Bernal has been saying that if Thomas was stronger than him on the road, he will be working for him.

If that's the case, then we'll see the Skineos train in full flow, with Ellisonde, Kwiatkowski, Castroviejo, and Poels killing all the rest and then Bernal stepping it up a gear when Thomas wants to go full nuclear. They'll do better than most in the TTT, he'll do better than most of his GC rivals in the individual TT, so it could well be that we see him gain time in the TTs that they defend in the mountains, with him taking an opportunistic stage win or two as well, after being teed up by Bernal, to add small time advantages and 10" bonuses. 

All in all, as long as he's anywhere near his best, it does look like he has a good chance to win Tour no.2. But will he be near his best given his preparation, that's the question.. and will he be good enough to hold off his team-mate, that is another question.. If Thomas isn't close to 100% when they hit the Planche, it could be that we see Bernal go up the road, take time on him and become the de facto team leader. And then it will be very hard to regain control. 

Egan Bernal - Team Ineos - 3.7 Best Price (Betfair) 

This time last year we had two men from the same team who were classed as 'favourites', but there was a big difference in their prices, based on how the race was presumably going to turn out. Froome was 5/4 favourite and had the team behind him, Thomas was 16/1, as he was one of the 'domestiques' that was going to be working for him. 

This year, it's a very different picture, with Egan Bernal basically sharing favoritism with Thomas and in some eyes, the real favourite for the race. His preparation and season to date is in marked contrast to Thomas's.

He started the season with 4th place in the Tour of Colombia, where he wasn't quite tuned up, but then came to Europe a month later and was a superb winner of Paris-Nice, with consistent, solid performances in the hills and a superb TT on stage 6 making the difference. 

Just a week later he finished 3rd in Catalunya behind Lopez and Yates, with 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 11th and 12th place finishes on stages. The 2nd place was on stage 3 to Vallter 2000 which finishes at an altitude of 2,146m, a similar climb to some of those he will face towards the end of this race in the Alps. He finished with Yates, Martin and Quintana, but they were 53" ahead of a group with Pinot and Bardet.

And then after a near three-month break, including stints training at altitude again, he came back two weeks ago and was the superb winner of Tour de Suisse. He basically 'won' the GC race on both the tough mountain stages, finishing 2nd behind Toelhoek on stage 6, and then winning stage 7. His performance on stage 6 didn't greatly impress me, he got a gap with his acceleration when they were all on the limit, but didn't really ride away - he only beat Bidard, who had been in the break all day, by 7" and Dennis by 29". 

He was better on stage 7's finish to the 2,100m St Gottard though, attacking hard and slowly extending his advantage all the way to the finish. But again, he only beat Rohan Dennis by 23" and Tiesj Benoot by 34", not exactly renowned climbers. But it was enough to give him a 41" advantage going in to the TT over Dennis, and he pushed it right to the limit in the TT to limit his losses to Dennis to just 19". It was a combination of a poor TT by Dennis (he finished just 6th, but was the odds-on favourite to take the stage) and a balls-out, flat-out TT by Bernal which almost saw him come off on one bend he came in to it so hot. 

He looks like a Tour winner in waiting, but will it be this year? Well, given how hot his form is, and how not Thomas's form is, then if you were to take a matchbet between the two of them I'd certainly be leaning towards Bernal. Bernal has said "If he's better than me, for sure I'll help him.." It might well be that we see him attack or go with the fastest guys on La Planche and Thomas could flounder a little if he's under-prepared, and that might well decide who is 'better' - and who gets protected rider from then on. 

With so many climbs above 2,000m in the final week, it could be advantage the Colombians, and we could well see him fly to victory. On the flip side, those stages at the end of three weeks racing could well find out a young, inexperienced rider. 

Jakob Fuglsang - Astana - 7/1 Best Price (Betfair)

Jakob Fuglsang one of the top 3 favourites for the Tour? Bet not many saw that happening at the start of this year.. But given his season to date, it's hard to argue against him being up there as one of the top three in the betting. 

Winner of the Vuelta a Andalucia in February, thanks to two 2nd places in stages, one of which was the hilly 16km TT, he did what he needed to do by staying with Izagirre and Yates on the queen stage to seal victory. He then finished 2nd in Strade Bianche to his arch-nemesis Julian Alaphilippe, and a week later finished 3rd in Tirreno, just 30" behind Roglic and ahead of the likes of Dumoulin and Pinot, his solo win on stage 4 being a real highlight. 

Next he was 4th in Itzulia, he briefly was 3rd after Buchmann took a wrong turn in the last kilometre, but the organisers reinstated him back in 3rd place, bumping Fuglsang back down again. He then went to the Ardennes and was sensational - 3rd in Amstel Gold (but could have thrown his podium place away after stopping working in the closing 5kms after being told they would not be caught by MVDP), 2nd in La Fleche to Alaphilippe, and finally 1st in Liege-Bastogne-Liege. He was superb in Liege, attacking hard on the Roche-aux-Faucons and soloing to victory. 

He then took a racing break for 6 weeks, did some altitude prep for the Tour and came back to the Dauphiné, where he won again for the 2nd time in 3 years. It might not have been a vintage Dauphiné, but he was well clear of Pinot, Martin, Quintana and Porte. His performance in the 26km TT was impressive, coming home in 9th place - he may have been 1'07" behind Van Aert, but he was only 20" behind Dumoulin and finished ahead of Porte, Pinot, Quintana, Martin and Bardet. 

He sealed the deal with a fine 2nd place behind Poels on the tough finish to Pipay on stage 7, again, finishing ahead of all his key TDF rivals on a crucial test. Fuglsang can call on one of the strongest teams in the race, Astana have been flying this season, with Gorka Izagirre, Omar Fraile, Magnus Cort, Alexey Lutsenko, Dimitri Gruzdev, LL Sanchez and Pelle Bilbao a formidable force to tee up attacks from him or to chase down the Skineos boys. 

He doesn't look like your typical TDF winner, he's a surprise 3rd favourite to many, but you just cannot ignore him or deny that he is in tip-top form when many others have so many question marks. At 11/2 he might be a good price for those who want to go against the top 2, and he might just be a nice e/w bet to nothing as he has the form and the team to pull off a top 3. But there are always question marks about his durability over three weeks, he's started eleven Grand Tours and has only finished in the top 10 once, the Tour back in 2013. 

Adam Yates - Mitchelton Scott - 12/1 Best Price (Various)

Adam Yates' best result on his palmares is probably still his win in the 2015 Clasica San Sebastian. He's also won stages in the Dauphiné and Tirreno, and won the overall at the Tour of Turkey in 2014, but a little hidden on his palmares is his 4th place in the Tour de France in 2016, just 21" off Quintana's 3rd spot and just 37" off 2nd place. 

He actually held 2nd place in the GC for five stages from stage 8, then 3rd place until the stage 18 ITT, before eventually slipping down to 4th. He did win the young riders jersey though that year and rode very consistently throughout. He then finished 9th in the Giro in 2017, but struggled in the Vuelta a little and ended up finishing 33rd.

2018 saw him go in to the Tour full of confidence having finished 2nd in the Dauphiné behind Geraint Thomas, but he never really fired at the Tour, losing 51" in the wind on the first stage and nearly five minutes on the stage to La Rosiere, and his race was done. He eventually finished 29th, and never came close to winning a stage. He then went to the Vuelta and finished 45th, and again, came nowhere near winning a stage, losing a stack of time in the 32km TT. 

This year has been a much more promising year for him though, with 8th in Valenciana (and a decent stage win, outsprinting Valverde), 5th in Andalucia (with a very decent 5th place in the 16km TT), 2nd in Tirreno, after leading it from the 2nd stage to the final TT, where he was bested by Primoz Roglic by just ONE second. The team also won the TTT over 21.5kms, which augurs well for the TTT here. 

He then finished 2nd again in Catalunya, losing out to Lopez by just 14", but again winning a stage ahead of Bernal, Martin and Quintana on Vallter 2000. Itzulia saw him win another stage, beating Dan Martin and Jakob Fuglsang, but he only finished 5th, having lost time on the 2nd stage. He was also flying in the Dauphiné, leading it after finishing a superb 6th on the 4th stage 26km ITT, but slipped down to 2nd after losing time on the penultimate stage to Pipay, the reason why becoming clear the next day when he abandoned due to stomach trouble. 

Stomach trouble would have cleared up in a few days and he'd have been back training hard soon after, so I'm not worried about that. Looking at his results above, and especially at his performances in the ITTs (and the team's in the Tirreno TTT), you would have to say that he is probably THE form rider of the year, and should be coming here with a strong chance of victory. Yes, he can be flakey over three weeks, but he certainly seems to be doing something right this year and the 12/1 offers decent e/w value, he will be challenging for a podium place I believe. 

Richie Porte - BMC - 18/1 Best Price

Two years ago Porte went off the 13/8 favourite for the Tour, last year he was just 9/4. This year, a much more realistic 18/1. Realistic or massively over-priced? Some would say under-priced, that he'll never win a Grand Tour, and having backed him a few times over the years with disappointing outcomes, I'm beginning to start to agree. 

He's won a lot of shorter stage races over the years, including Paris-Nice (x2), Tour de Suisse, Volta ao Algarve, Romandie, Catalunya, and has twice finished runner-up in the Dauphiné. But his record in three-week races is rubbish, he always seems to find trouble. Not the sharpest tool in the box, Richie seems to get himself in to trouble more often than Thomas and Froome combined. 

This year he has made the move to Trek from BMC and things haven't improved a great deal for him. Sure, he finished 2nd in the TDU and won his stage on Willunga as per usual, and finished 5th in the Herald Tour, but those races count for nothing when it comes to July in France. 50th in the UAE Tour, 38th in Catalunya, he then got sick and was out for almost two months before heading to the US to train and then take part in the Tour of California. 

It wasn't a bad return to racing for him to be fair, 5th overall thanks to a fine 4th place on the Queen stage to Mount Baldy, he finished just 10" behind the winner, Togacar, but 1'18" ahead of Uran and TVG. On returning to Europe for the Dauphiné he was pretty average to be fair, finishing 11th overall. He was 11th also in the 26km TT, 1'19" down on WVA, 38" behind Van Garderen and just 2" ahead of Pinot, not a great marker. 

On the key mountain-top finish to Pipay though he finished with the dropped Quintana and Woods, 46" down on Poels, 36" behind Yates, Martin and Pinot and 45" behind Fuglsang. He was sitting in 10th place last year, but did a Richie and crashed out of the Paris-Roubaix stage before they even hit the cobbles on stage 9, then went to the Vuelta a month later and had another nightmare, finishing 97th in the opening TT, slipping to 169th after just 4 stages, more than 40 minutes down. 

And it didn't really get any better from there, his best result on a stage was a pathetic 38th, on the stage to Lagos de Cavadonga, where he finished more than 10 minutes down on the winner, he basically had given up for the season. Motivation doesn't look much better this season, He's 34 now, and he doesn't really have a team built to look after him in the high mountains - bar Bauke Mollema and Giulio Ciccone, but they might well be riding their own races should Richie disappoint again. 

Nairo Quintana - Movistar - 18/1 Best Price (Various)

Speaking of riders who have disappointed more often than not lately, we now find Nairo Quintana at double figures at 14/1. 8/1 last year, he wasn't doing too badly, sitting in 5th place going in to stage 18, having won stage 17 brilliantly, but crashed on the flat stage 18 and hurt his shoulder, ankle and more. It really affected him on the monster stage 19 to Laruns, which included the Tourmalet and the Aubisque, he ended up losing over 7 minutes, slipping down to 9th. 

7/1 for the 2017 Tour, it seemed like a crazy price with Froome as vulnerable looking as we'd seen him before a Grand Tour. But as it turned out, he never got higher than 8th place on the GC during the race and eventually had to settle for 12th, outside the top 10. 

He disappointed both those years, like he did in 2016 when 2/1 second favourite, never really getting in a blow, with his 2nd place on the short stage that finished in Foix the closest he came to any sort of glory. Pushing himself to the limit at the Giro to finish 2nd to Dumoulin had taken its toll on him. Like last year there was no Giro this year for him, and it was just as well for the team as Carapaz took the win with Landa 4th, neither of them having to babysit the fading star.

Last year he went to the Vuelta too and was on the podium in 3rd place for a while, up to the TT on stage 16, but he'd a horror show that day, losing 2'10", and more importantly 1'19" to Kruijswijk who leap-frogged over him to 3rd place. He then lost time the next day on the tough finish to Balcon de Bizkaia and Enric Mas and Lopez jumped above him and he lost more time on stage 20 to eventually have to settle for 8th place on the GC. 

His results this year have been pretty mixed. 8th in San Juan, 5th in Colombia, then an impressive 2nd in Paris-Nice, thanks to an good showing alongside Bernal on the Col de Turini on stage 7. His TT on stage 5 (25kms) was pretty average though, losing 53" to Simon Yates and 38" to Bernal. He followed that up with a decent showing in the mountains at Catalunya, to take 4th overall, but again, he was not good enough for the likes of Lopez, Yates and Bernal.

He also looked below the required level at the Dauphiné, losing lots of time in the TT again to the likes of Kruijswijk, Dumoulin, TVG and Adam Yates. Then on the crucial mountain stage to Pipay, he tried an attack and it was pretty lame - very quickly closed down, and he promptly went out the back door, losing time again to his key rivals. He eventually finished 9th. 

Of course you don't want to be peaking in the Dauphiné, on a course that didn't really suit him, and he hadn't raced since April 6th, but his level must be a concern to both him and the team. At this rate, skinny Valverde or Mikel Landa could well be given protected status ahead of him, and if he loses time on La Planche, it could well be domestique duties for Nairo from then on. 

Thibaut Pinot - Groupama - 20/1 best price

L'Equipe has ratcheted up the pressure on Pinot and Bardet already, by declaring 'It's now or never' beside a picture of the two of them last week. It looks like they both have to really raise their game in order to compete this year, but L'Equipe's logic that without Froome and Dumoulin the race is devoid of a strong favourite and could be a lot more open than people are believing. 

Pinot is having a pretty decent season though, he has been very consistent since the start, carrying on the good form that saw him take two stages in the Vuelta, and win Milano-Torino and Lombardia towards the back end of last season. 

4th in the Tour de la Provence, winner of the Haut Var, 5th in Tirreno (helped by a decent 10km TT on stage 7 which moved him up two places), then 11th in Catalunya, where he lost 53" to the likes of Martin and Bernal on the tough finish to Vallter 2000 on stage 3, pushing him out of contention. There was talks he was ill though, so he can be forgiven that ride. 

He took a two-month break to do altitude training and course recon rides and returned in good form winning the Tour de l'Ain, winning stage 3 and finishing 2nd on stage 2, although the opposition was pretty weak. He then finished 5th in the Dauphiné just a few weeks back, where he suffered in the cold and wet on a few stages, but did a reasonable TT (12th, +1'21"). He also rode well on the Queen stage to Pipay, finishing 4th, leading home a small group with Martin and Yates, with Bardet 3" behind them. 

He was frustrated with the course and the way the race was run in bad weather, but said he was pleased with how it went: "I came here to reassure myself, and that's done. But I'm a competitor, I want to get results, to win races.' It sounds like Pinot is happy with his form, but just wasn't really able to show it to maximum effect. He could start to click in to gear though in the second and third week of this Tour and with Reichenbach, Molard, Gaudu, Kung and Roux with him, he might go better than his odds of 16/1 suggests.  

Steven Kruijswijk - Jumbo Visma - 22/1 Best Price (various)

5th in the Tour last year, Kruijswijk was planning an all-out assault on the race this year, so much so that Primoz Roglic has said that if he was going to ride the Tour, he'd be riding in support of Kruijswijk. 

Kruijswijk has had a very solld start to the year, with 3rd in Andalucia, 5th in Catalunya, 6th in Romandie (while riding for Roglic who was preparing for the Giro) and was sitting in 9th place in the Dauphiné going in to the last stage, before he too had to abandon because of stomach problems, like Yates. 

He was actually in 5th place, just 24" behind Yates starting stage 8, but lost time on the climb to Pipay, no doubt because of the stomach issues, so it could have been even better for him had he not got ill and put in a solid ride on that climb. Again, like Yates, he will not have been inconvenienced too much in the grand scheme of things by the sickness, and he was already back training hard in the Alps in the last few days. 

Kruijswijk will fly under the radar again, but he has shown a lot this year to make him  a very strong top 6 contender. He climbs with the best of them, and his TT'ing is one of the best amongst GC contenders. His TT in the Dauphiné was excellent, just 2" slower than Dumoulin and ahead of all his key rivals for the Tour, including putting 47" in to Quintana. He'll also be backed up by one of the best TTT teams in the race, and has the support of George Bennett and Laurens de Plus in the mountains and Tony Martin, Wout Van Aert and Mike Teunnissen for the lumpy medium hilly stages. 

All in all, he looks a great prospect for a top 6 placing as I said, and could even podium thanks to the TTT and his own ITT. He came very close to a podium in the Vuelta last year, he actually was in 3rd place with just 2 stages to go but struggled on the road to Andorra when Enric Mas and MA Lopez took off and put time in to him to move above him.   

Mikel Landa - Movistar - 25/1 Best Price (various)

Last year Nairo Quintana was 9/1, his team-mate Landa 10/1... In the end, if you'd have taken Landa at odds-against in a matchbet, you'd have won, as he finished more than 7 minutes ahead of his captain. He was part of that infamous 'three-pronged attack' on the Tour last year that promised so much, but didn't really deliver so much, but they are back again this year to try again, with Valverde joining the other two. 

Valverde has said he is there to work for the team, but for whom might be decided out on the road, and maybe even as early as stage 6 if Landa gains the upper hand on Quintana on La Planche. 

Landa has a history of doing things for himself and even attacking his own team-mates, he's done it to Quintana in the Tour and he's also done it to Froome in the past when at Sky. Even while riding for Carapaz at the Giro he did his own thing a few times, but to be fair he was riding for a podium spot, 3rd was up for grabs, he lost out only on the final TT to Roglic by 8". 

Although he's not ridden a lot this year due to injury, he has been in pretty decent form, finishing 4th in the Coppi E Bartali, his first stage race back after injury, winning a stage in the process, then 7th in Itzulia, 7th in LBL and was sitting in 2nd in the Vuelta Asturias until he had to abandon after the 2nd stage. His TT'ing isn't the worst, but it's not great either, so he'll be pleased there are so little individual TT miles in the race.

They'll do ok, not great in the TT, but he'll be licking his lips at all of those mountain stages. Given Quintana is not who he was and hasn't looked to be firing on all cylinders this year, Landa could well be top man for them again. 

Conclusion

This Tour looks to be a battle between the Ineos boys judging by the betting, with a 50% chance that either Thomas or Bernal will win, according to their combined odds. But that leaves a 50% chance that neither of them will win it, and there are a host of strong guys I've listed above who are ready to take them on. Fuglsang, Yates, Landa, Kruijswijk, Quintana and Porte will all fancy their chances, but not only that, there are a load more guys like Vincenzo Nibali, Romain Bardet and Rigo Uran who I've not even mentioned yet who could be up there challenging. I've covered them and made my final selections in my Outsiders analysis.

My final recommendations are on the foot of my 'Outsiders' analysis - click here to read that now.