Details

Published on Monday, 26 June 2017 15:13

Tour de France 2017 

On your marks, get set....

I thought it would be unlikely that we would ever see anything that could top Chris Froome running up a mountain in a Grand Tour, but then Tom Dumoulin stopped to take a dump in the bushes in the Giro d'Italia and still won the race..!   

The 2017 Giro d'Italia was one of the best Grand Tour's I can remember for many a year, with drama and suspense right up to the last minutes of the race. The lead changed hands no fewer than eight times during the race, with the most important change of leader coming on the very last day when Nairo Quintana had to hand his jersey over to Tom Dumoulin after the final time trial. It was a great race to watch, but man, was it a tough race to bet on this year.

Massive surprise winners in Lukas Postlberger and Jan Polanc (200/1 +) set the tone early on, with Caleb Ewan, seemingly the fastest man in the race taking four sprints before he landed a win. Fernando Gavira continued to show us that he has what it takes to become one of the best sprinters in the world, and an heir apparent to Peter Sagan's Green Jersey in the Tour de France. 

And speaking of Peter Sagan, he showed us in the Tour de Suisse once again what an amazing talent he is, exploding away from the rest to win stage 5 doing a hula dance (above). Michael Matthews got off the mark too as he prepares for the Tour and Domenico Pozzovivo had a good week, taking AG2R's first World Tour win of 2017 with victory in stage 6. Rohan Dennis topped and tailed it with victories in the two TTs, but it wasn't enough to secure him a spot on the BMC squad for the Tour, a squad that is built to try to help Richie Porte win the Grand Boucle. 

We saw in the Route du Sud that Pierre Rolland is in really good shape with a superb solo victory on the Queen stage, to follow up on his excellent win to Canazei in the Giro. While he was doing that, Rafal Majka was taking the Queen stage, and with it the overall GC in the Tour of Slovenia, I think we'll be seeing these two do battle over the next three weeks for the KOM title. 

Last year's Tour saw Chris Froome rack up win number three in quite comfortable fashion, Nairo Quintana never seemingly willing, or possibly able, to really throw it down to the Sky man. Romain Bardet rode one of the rides of the race on the penultimate mountain stage to leap in to 2nd place, above Nairo Quintana, with Adam Yates in 4th (and the best Young Rider) with Richie Porte in 5th place. This year's race looks to be the most open in years, with Chris Froome looking vulnerable and Richie Porte in the form of his life. 

And to whet your appetite, here's a nice little trailer from the Tour de France, watch out for Froome in training at the end.. 

The 2017 Route

The 104th edition of the Tour de France starts in Dusseldorf in Germany on July the 1st, and also passes through Belgium and Luxembourg before entering France. The race predominantly stays in the eastern side of France this year, but visits 34 counties along a 3,540km route.  I have to admit it here though, but this looks like a pretty poor route this year. In writing each of the stages route analysis I found myself writing the word 'boring' over and over again. Long, boring stages with little or no features to get excited about. A far cry from some of the exciting stages of the Giro just gone. 

After a TT start in Dusseldorf , where local hero Tony Martin will be hoping to pull on the first yellow jersey of the race, the race heads south through Belgium and Luxembourg and on to the first summit finish of the race on just stage 5 at La Planche des Belles Filles, where Chris Froome took a breakthrough victory in 2012

For the first time since 1992 the race hits all five mountain ranges in France, moving from the Vosges to the Jura, the Pyrenées, Massif Central and the Alps. After a few ordinary-looking stages on the way to the Jura mountains, where possibly the only excitement might come courtesy of the wind, they do tackle a tough day on stage 8 with the lumpy route that takes them to the Station des Rousses.Then the course shifts to the west and a number of transition stages takes them down to the Pyrenées.

There they tackle two interesting stages in the mountains on the Thursday and Friday of the second week. The first, stage 12 to Peyragudes, is the third longest stage of the race at 214kms and has two Cat 1s and an HC climb, and it's followed by the shortest (full) road stage ever in the TDF at just 100kms, where we might see a crazy, wild day of attacking from the start. One of the few stages worth tuning in for from the start I'd suggest. 

They then traverse through the Massif Central, and once again tackle the uphill finish to Rodez, scene of a great battle between Greg Van Avermaet and Peter Sagan in 2015, but the rest of the stage can be forgotten about unless you like looking at green fields and brown Salers cows.

The Wednesday and Thursday of the third week could well decide the outcome of the race though with two tough stages to Serre Chevalier and Izoard. Stage 17 to Serre Chevalier in particular will be a brutal one, with the Croix de Fer, Telegraphe and Galibier all on the same day. From there they head towards Marseille, scene of the penultimate, and possibly decisive final TT, before the final fun-run to Paris. 

It's not a great route, as I mentioned already, the start will be interesting in Germany and Belgium, and after that the key stages will be stage 5 to La Planche des Belles Filles, stages 12 and 13 in the Pyrenées and possibly 15 depending on how hard they race it, then 17 and 18 in the Alps and the final TT on stage 20 in Marseilles. So, unless we get some of those crazy stages where the wind decides to blow and the race splits unexpectedly (and Riche Porte will inevitably be on the wrong side of the split), or the GC men like Froome or Contador go on the attack early on some other stages, there's not really a whole lot to get excited about, unless you enjoy long boring sprint and break stages, of which there seems to be quite a lot.. But hey, it's the Tour de France, it'll be great anyway. 

Main Contenders

Chris Froom had been the odds-on favourite for this race ever since his victory last year, it looked like a formality for him again this year, to just turn up and destroy the opposition. But Froome had a pretty disappointing (by his standards) Critérium du Dauphiné at the start of June, where he not only didn't win it, as was expected, but he only managed 4th, not even making the podium. In the three years that Froome has won the Tour de France previously ('16, '15' and '13), he had also won the Dauphiné prep-race, but it was also the manner of the defeat that caused alarm bells to ring for some.

He didn't do a great TT, was dropped by Porte on Alpe d'Huez and, despite looking good when attacking on the final stage he blew up and lost a minute and a half to Porte over the course of the final climb. And his form prior to that this year has been pretty patchy too, finishing 18th in Romandie and 30th in Catalunya, not the kind of form figures you'd be expecting from the TDF favourite. 

On the other hand, Richie Porte's season has been one of his best yet, and despite the calamity that was his final day loss to Jacob Fuglsang, he had ridden brilliantly in the Dauphiné and deserved to win it. He smashed the TT, he crushed the final climb, catching and passing a whole gaggle of top class riders on his way up. After being 10/1 in January, he has practically joined Froome as favourite for the race, with Paddy Power in fact making him favourite ahead of Froome after the Dauphiné..

After that you have Nairo Quintana at the scarcely believeable price of 6/1, he was pushed out as Porte shortened, following his disappointing showing in the Giro. "But he finished 2nd, how is that disappointing?!" I hear you cry.. but it was the manner in which he rode that is the greatest cause for alarm. Dropped by Dumoulin on Oropa and basically disappointing on nearly every mountain stage, losing time to far inferior climbers.

And how will Nairo turn up here? He had a tough Giro and losing it on the last day will have been hard. Was it training for the Tour, or will he be fatigued and unablle to go with the big hitters when it matters most? And I actually don't think the course suits him all that much either - not a great deal of brutally hard climbing, with only three summit finishes, and two TTs as well, although they are a lot shorter than what they could have been.                                                     

Alberto Contador at 16/1 for the Tour sounds ridiculous, he's the only rider in the race to have won all three Grand Tours, but his form hasn't been brilliant so far this year, and he was left behind in the Dauphiné. Romain Bardet will be looking to take another step forward from his 2nd place of 2016 and there's a whole host of other riders just waiting in the wings to seize upon any probems to the top two.. Jacob Fuglsang and Fabio Aru are joint leaders for Astana, Alejandro Valverde is a potential winner too, but will be looking after Quintana (or so he says...), Geraint Thomas, Esteban Chaves Rafal Majka and Dan Martin... They are sure to add some excitement and variation to the race.                                             

So it's going to be good regardless of the boring route, as they say, it's the riders who make the race and we should be in for a hell of a battle between Porte and BMC and Froome and Sky. 

If you would like to read my overall preview, jersey's previews, additional markets previews and daily stage previews for the duration of the Tour, Click here to subscribe now... 

And what's more - every subscriber will be entered in to a draw to win a super-cool Banana jersey, courtesy of the lovely people at Look Mum No Hands bike café worth £65, and I have three runners-up prizes of their world-famous podium pants! Winners will be drawn at random at the end of the Tour from all subscribers!

Also - if you order anything from the Look Mum No Hands range of cool stuff, use the code 'CyclingBetting' and get a 10% discount! And thats not just for subscribers, but for everyone!