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Published on Tuesday, 27 June 2017 14:50

TDF 2017 White Jersey Preview

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 has now settled down to be just anyone who is under 26 years of age.

Since the young rider classification was introduced, it has been won by 36 different cyclists. Of those, six also won the yellow jersey during their careers (Fignon, LeMond, Pantani, Ullrich, Contador and Schleck).

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 and Schleck in '10. 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).

Adam Yates won this competition last year in a very close-run contest with Louis Meintjes, just 2'16" separated them at the end. Emanuel Buchmann was 3rd, but was over 40 minutes further back. The good news from the competition point of view is that Meintjes and Buchman return to do battle with Yates, only this year it is Simon Yates and not Adam! 

This year also sees another crop of top youngsters coming through behind these guys. Recent form shows that we could be in for another cracking battle for the white jersey, with some of those in contention for it also possibly going to be challenging for a top 10 place. 

Louis Meintjes - 6/5 

Louis Meintjes is in great form at the moment and looks to be riding really well in the hills. He went extremely well last year and he's still only 25, It feels like he's been around for years. In fact he shares a birthday with me, just quite a few years younger!

He had a disaster in the TDF in 2015 when he abandoned with only four stages to go, whilst sitting in a lowly 101st place, a crash on stage 12 when in the break of the day cost him (left).. But in other races that year he showed his potential, with a fine 10th place finish in the Vuelta and winner of the youth competitions in the Giro del Trentino and Tour of Oman.

Last year he just rode steady and solid and spent most of the race inside the top 13, slipping in to the top 10 in the last week. He had a similar performance in the Dauphiné last year where he finished 9th overall but 3rd in the Youth competition. And this year he also rode very well in the Dauphiné, finishing 8th overall and 2nd in the Youth, just 40" behind Buchmann. 

He's very experienced for such a young man, and has a strong experienced team around him and that might make all the difference. I think he has a tremendous chance of finishing high up in the top 10 again this year and as a result is justifiably the short price favourite for the jersey. 

 From Cycling Weekly: 

“Last year’s result motivates me to try and go for some more in the GC. I hope that there will be no problems in the first week, then it will be great to have the same feelings on the mountains I had in the Critérium du Dauphiné. Coming out of the Dauphiné, I feel quite good. I went on the attack on the second last stage to test the form and everything went right. The race has gone a long way in giving me the confidence for the next few weeks ahead,” he explained.

Meintjes again promised to ride intelligently, in the hope of a consistent performance and a good overall result. He may not be seen on the attack but hopes to limit his losses on every mountain finish and so rise through the general classification before Paris. “I think I need to race smart and to my strengths, so it will depend on the race situation if I need to be more aggressive or not,” he explained. “I don’t feel a better result is always strictly connected to a more aggressive attitude. An example is Tom Dumoulin. He won the Giro d’Italia by managing his energies and racing in a smart way, especially in the stages where he needed to limit his losses to the strong climbers.” A managed and controlled approach could well deliver him the white jersey.

Simon Yates - 6/4 

What if the Yates brothers pulled a fast one and sent Adam in to the race in the guise of Simon, in order to try to win his crown again.. Is he a better rider than Simon? Would he have had a better chance? Hard to know, they are almost impossible to split in terms of ability and results. 

Simon didn't get to ride this race last year of course as he was serving a 4-month ban for the illegal use of Terbutaline without a TUE in Paris Nice. Where would he have finished had he ridden? Probably pretty close to Adam you'd expect. 

He came back from his ban last year and quickly won the Prueba Villafranca before finishing 4th in the Vuelta a Burgos (best young rider) and then went on to perform brilliantly at the Vuelta, never being lower than 13th from the very first stage and finishing 6th overall. He also won a brilliant stage on stage 6 and won the Youth classification (if the Vuelta actually did one, which they don't) by 5 minutes from Formolo. 

This season has gone pretty well for him too, winning a stage in Paris Nice and finishing 9th overall, winning the GP Miguel Indurain, winning a stage in the Tour de Romandie and finishing 2nd overall, just 21" behind Richie Porte, he was the only one able to stay with Porte on stage 4 to Leysin. He wasn't great though in the Dauphiné, finishing quite a way back on the three crucial mountain stages, he looked a beaten man quite a bit from the finish on a few of the stages. And that worries me about him, whether he is going ot be capable of continuing to deliver well in to the third week.. I'm not so sure, I think Meintjes has the edge there. Yates has a better time trial, but there isn't that much time trialling after all and Meintjes should be able to cover him. 

Emanuel Buchmann - 6/1

Emanuel Buchmann continues to show his enormous potential, potential that could one day see him become the only the second German to ever win the Tour, the first being Jan Ulrich back in 1997. Ulrich has the amazing statistic to his name that he finished 2nd five times behind known dopers - Riis, Pantani and Armstrong three times.

So technically should he be a four-time winner of the Tour with Armstrong scratched from the record books? Well, no, I don't think so, he was as doped as the rest of them, he doesn't deserve that honour. But man did I like Ulirich when I was younger.. such cool, effortless style on the bike. 

Anyway, back to Buchmann.. He does look like he will be a serious GC challenger in years to come, I think he can be a semi-serious challenger even this year and I expect a big ride from him. 

Just last week he came home 2nd behind his team-mate Marcus Burghardt in a 1-2 for Bora in the German Nationals Road Race, possibly gifting it to his older mate who will be working his ass off for him and the rest of the team in the Tour to come. Buchmann himself of course was the surprise winner of the German Road Race in 2015. They were 43" clear of their nearest rivals, so both are in great shape.

Before that he has had a pretty impressive run of results, especially for a 24-year old who is often left sans team-mates in the latter parts of hilly stages. 7th in the Dauphiné (best young rider), 10th in Romandie (2nd best young rider, 2" behind Jungels).

He was superb in the Dauphiné, taking 7th overall, nearly 3 minutes ahead of Contador, taking the white jersey and finishing a fantastic 4th on the final stage, ahead of Aru, Bardet, Porte and Froome. He was 17" behind Meiintjes that day, but still had enough in hand to beat him to the overall by 40". 

3rd in the youth classification and 21st overall in only his second Tour last year, there was a gulf of 40 minutes to Meintjes in 2nd place, but I reckon he has definitely improved enough to close that gap and I expect him to be one of the top 3 here, possibly runner-up to Meintjes. 

Pierre Latour - 12/1 

Pierre Latour became the French TT champion last week, but that's not saying much, French TT talent is pretty scarce these days. That's being a bit unfair though, it was a great performance by the young man, beating former French TT champion Sylvain Chavanel by 1'20". Latour joined the pro ranks of AG2R in 2015 after some fantastic results as an amatuer in the previous year, including 3rd in the Young Giro di Lombardia and 6th place in the Tour de L'Avenir. 

His debut 2015 season saw him finish 3rd to Alberto Contador and Nairo Quintana in the Route du Sud, 7th in the Tour of Austria, 5th in the Vuelta a Burgos and 3rd in the Tour de l'Ain! 2016 saw him finish 2nd in the Criterium International, 14th in Pais Vasco, 12th in Romandie and 3rd in the Tour de l'Ain, before finishing an impressive 28th in his debut Grand Tour, the Vuelta in September. Results have been a little harder to come by this season, but he still has finished 4th in the Etoile de Besseges, 14th in Romandie and 15th in the Dauphiné. 

He's got a pretty decent team here with him, but a lot of their focus will be on Bardet, but Latour will be looked after too, especially if it looks like he has a chance for white. He will get a head start on his rivals above in the TT and the final TT should be in his favour also. But I think he will have a job on his hands to topple all three of those above to win the White. 

And there are lots of other quality youngsters in this year's race who could have a say - Guillaume Martin, Tiesj Benoot, Damien Howson (will go well in the TTs), Jay McCarthy (will go well in the mountains) and so on. But I really think it is between the four guys named above, and I'm going for Louis Meintjes to land the odds at 6/5 for us, I think he'll just be too good on the mountain stages for the others. 

Recommendation:

3pts win at 6/5 on Louis Meintjes at 6/5 with PP