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Published on Monday, 02 July 2018 00:33

TDF 2018 - Favourites

A look at the main favourites chances

We have had two different favourites for this race over the last few months, with the nonsense of the is he/ isn't he going to (or be allowed to) ride the Tour.. 

It saw Richie Porte temporarily head the market while confusion reigned and the likes of Bardet, Dumoulin and Nibali all backed to shorer prices. But Froome is now starting and has jumped to 7/4 favouritism again, following the UCI climb-down in his AAF case just today (Monday). After his Lazarus-like victory in the Giro, who's to bet he won't destroy a quality field here to win his fourth Grand Tour in a row?

He got a pretty good reception in Italy from the Tifosi, bar a few digs at his Ventolin use, but it could be a whole different matter entirely in France where I wouldn't be surprised to see the knives come out from the French.. Expect to hear plenty of booing if he takes to a podium.. 

But it is what it is, and we are faced with another race that has been overshadowed already with the circus we've had to witness for the last 6 months.. Lot's of people claim to have lost interest in the Tour and in cycling in general after today's announcement, as it has indeed left a very bad taste in the mouth. But I'm sure they'll be back if the race doesn't start to play out as the script says it might.

We have Froome at the top of the betting, but it is WIDE open after that it would seem in the betting, with no fewer than 12 riders under 25/1 to win. It is a reflection of how tough it's going to be to call the winner of this race, and you will need a large slice of luck along the way as well I feel, as there are several stages where luck could be a major factor in how a rider does in the GC. 

Chris Froome - Team Sky - 5/2 Best Price (Betfair) 

Four time winner Chris Froome is going for a record fifth win, to join the legends of the sport - only Bernard Hinault, Eddie Merckx, Jaques Anquetil and Miguel Indurain have won as many. 

Does Froome deserve to be mentioned in the pantheons of the greats in years to come? Should he be lauded in future years as one of the greatest GC riders, not just of his generation, but of all times? It's a tricky one isn't it..

On the face of things, he's an incredible rider. Four Tour de Frances, a Giro and a Vuelta, holding all three Grand Tour titles at the same time, and going for a fourth Grand Tour win in a row. The manner in which he has won some of those races certainly puts him up there with the greats, in the way that he has delivered the wins. He has gained time on rivals in TTs, up mountains, down mountains, in the wind and through being ruthless in going after every bonus second possible. 

His win last year might have been a bit fortuitious with the crash of Dan Martin and Richie Porte, but even still, he finished almost a minute ahead of Uran and over two minutes ahead of Bardet and Landa. He was comfortably clear of the field in the Vuelta and bar Dumoulin, who was 46" back, he was almost FIVE minutes clear of the 3rd and 4th placed finishers in the Giro this year. And that was after coming back from the dead with just a few stages to go. 

Three minutes down on Dumoulin starting stage 19, he ended the day 40" ahead of him, and the race was done. From prices of 40/1, 50/1, 60/1 and up to 130s on Betfair, Froome landed the spoils. I did say in my Giro previews, in my stage 11 analysis that I had heard the insiders at the Sky camp were not worried about the time loss and were confident he would turn it around in the 3rd week.. I suggested it might be worth a nibble at the huge prices (think he was about 25/1).. but did I back it myself? Of course not.. I didn't think it was possible myself.. but hopefully some of you took some!

But his legacy will always be tainted it would seem - years of doubts, suspicions, revelations, evidence of wrong-doing at Team Sky were bad enough to doubt him, then along came the double-the-permitted-level drugs fail and that was that.. Froome is persona-non-gratis at the Tour for a lot of people, some riders included (those brave enough to actually say what they feel), and even Bernard Hinault has had a right pop at his participation. Sky fired back declaring that Hinault doesn't know what he's talking about and has all his facts wrong... It will be an interesting podium should Hinault have to shake hands with Froome..  

But then again, Hinault, Merckx, Anquetil and Indurain - four riders with failed drugs test and a mountain of anecdotal evidence and suspicion around them, that if there had been social media back in the day, they'd probably have been hounded as much as Froome has.. Or maybe not.. Hinault would have probably punched everyone who ever said something bad about him on Twitter.  

So anyway, on to his chances.. if he hadn't won the Giro like he did, I don't think he'd be anywhere close to the price he is, maybe would have been 4/1 or 5/1 with Porte the 2/1 favourite. Quintana and Landa would have been closer in price to him and we could have seen the Movistar guys try to take him apart on a number of these stages. But after months of poor performances, including two weeks of riding like a guy with no form and no power, he only goes and blows the race apart.

Quite how he did it we might find out some time in the future, but Sky are running with the line that they had planned the whole thing months in advance and meticulously planned his day, with calorie intakes, small bidons at regular intervals on the climb etc.. only for a lot of it to be debunked as horseshit. But whatever way it happened, he rode himself in to form, recovered from the pre-race crash on the TT course, and got his team to put in an incredible move to set him on his way. Dumoulin and the others floundered and he was gone. 

How will he have come out of the Giro? Well, he didn't really expend a massive amount of energy for two weeks, then expended a whole lot in the last few days. It would have been mentally exhausting for him maybe to be in the position he was in, with constant questioning and harassing before and during the race, and now he goes right in to an even bigger melting pot with a much more cynical crowd.. 

This time last year I was writing about how "Three time winner Chris Froome comes here looking the most vulnerable I have seen him in four years." But I also wrote about the positives for him, and they are almost identical to this year - he is a multiple champion of this race and knows how to get it just right for July.

The course should suit him pretty well, we might even see him attack on one of the descents again, as he has a habit of doing now. He has probably got the best squad in the peloton available to him, the best that he will have ridden with all season and they are sure to try to blow it up day after day in the climbs.

The Team Time Trial should see him gain time over most rivals, the ITT at the end should suit him pretty well too. Possible vulnerabilities? The hill up to the Mur de Bretagne, the hill up to the airport in Mende, the cobbles of Roubaix and the possibility of being attacked on the Alpe d'Huez and Col de Portet stages, the Portet stage could see him under attack right from the flag drop. But his time losses should be small in most of these stages you'd think, unless something goes badly wrong. 

Of course he has a big chance of winning again, but I'm not taking 7/4 on that, even the 5/2 on Betfair is not tempting me. I think he could find it really tough going this year and he may pay for his exertions in Italy, and the Movistar/BMC/Astana/Sunweb/Bahrain/UAE alliance might just be the undoing of him. 

Richie Porte - BMC - 9/4 Best Price (Betfair)

This time last year I was looking forward to Porte's chances at the Tour, with 9/1 and 10/1 tickets in my pocket, as he went off the 13/8 favourite. He was doing pretty good and sitting in 5th place on the GC until he was put under pressure on the descent of the Mont du Chat on stage 9 by Chris Froome and crashed heavily, taking Dan Martin with him. 

This year has been a relatively quite one for Porte, he won on Willunga of course again in the TDU, on his way to 2nd overall behind Impey, but then struggled at the Itzulia and Volta ao Algarve, as he slowly began his preparations for the Tour. 

Romandie went a bit better, finishing 3rd on the tough uphill TT won by Egan Bernal and 5th on the Queen stage, but they were no match for Fuglsang that day as he rode away to victory. The TT placings almost mirrored the final GC, with Roglic taking the overall from Bernal and Porte. Then in the TDS he turned on the style on the short uphill finish on stage 6 to Gommiswald, leaving his GC rivals behind and jumped in to the yellow jersey. 

He held on the next day when Quintana went on the rampage on the 30km climb to Arosa, slowly clawing Quintana back to only about 7", but Quintana found a bit more towards the end as Porte tired. He did a good enough TT at the end though to win by over a minute and come in to the Tour with a nice victory under his belt to help with his confidence. 

Porte is clearly climbing brilliantly, he will have the assistance of one of the strongest TTT squad here to gain time on his rivals on only the 3rd stage, but will need to have his wits about him in the first 9 stages or it could be all over for him before he gets to climb a mountain.

He is vulnerable to so many potential disasters in the first third of the race - the winds could cause echelons in the early sprint stages, he has a habit of losing out in those. The lumpy finish to Quimper, the Mur de Bretagne, the cobbles of Roubaix.. all could see him give up needless, silly time losses. He will come in to his own in the second week though and stage 11 with the climb to La Rosiere looks like one he will be looking forward to, as well as Alpe d'Huez the next day. 

Stage 14's finish up the 10% hill to Mende might be just a bit too steep for him to ride away like he does on the 7% Willunga, but he shouldn't lose time to his rivals. He just needs to be careful on the descent off the Pic de Nore on stage 15, likewise off the Col de Portillon (where his old mate Froome is sure to put the pressure on) on stage 16 and the short 65km stage 17 could well see him power away from some of his rivals on the climb to the Col du Portet. 

Stages 19 and 20 could well be where the race is won and lost though, if he's still in contention (closer than 30" to the leader) going in to the final TT on stage 20, he will fancy his chances of winning this race. If he's leading the race coming in to stage 19, he needs to just defend and get through it and do a good ITT the next day.

But there are so many ifs, buts and maybes with Porte, it's really hard to know how it will go, the overwhelming feeling is that a whole load of good work and fantastic results will be undone with one bad day or an unfortunate incident... Let's hope not, I'd love to see him win it. 

Nairo Quintana - Movistar - 8/1 Best Price (Various)

Nairo Quintana was 7/1 for last year's Tour, it seemed like a crazy price with Froome as vulnerable looking as we've 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 probably was 1/10 to finish in the top 10, so that was a pretty remarkable result for the little Colombian. 

He disappointed, 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. 

There was no Giro this year though, it's all in for the Tour for Movistar this year. 2nd in Catalunya, 5th in Itzulia and 3rd in the Tour de Suisse a few weeks back, he showed his climbing legs are in great shape with an incredible long-range attack on the 27km long climb to Arosa, going with 25kms still to race on the stage. He said he wanted to test his legs (after faltering a little on the previous stage when Porte attacked), but he was very pleased with how it worked out, he said the sensations were good. 

He is part of the Movistar tri-pronged attack, he is supposedly the leader, but it might all depend on how he comes through to the first rest day. There are a number of stages he could get caught out on, none more so than the stage to Roubaix. He did put in a lot of practice on the cobbles with his Movistar team-mates though and even took part in Dwars Door Vlaanderen to get some race practice in.. He finished 60th, with the main group nearly 7 mins down. 

What can we expect of him this year? The 8/1 might look like a great each-way bet if he dances away on Alpe d'Huez like he did the last time the Tour came up here, and there are a number of other stages he could go well on. There could have been more summit finishes though, I think the number of stages that finish with a descent after the final climb will work against him. The TTT and ITT will also go against him, so I think if he is to have any chance of winning, or even finishing in the top 3 on this race he needs to go on the attack repeatedly and try to take 30" to a minute on a few stages. 

He does have a superb team with him of course, Valverde, Soler and Landa will be instrumental in looking after him in the mountains, along with Erviti, Amador, Rojas and Bennati for on the flatter parts of stages. Expect to see them riding with one or two men in breaks on crucial stages with downhill or flat sections between or after the final climbs for Quintana to try to bridge to and work with to stay away.

For too long now though we've seen Quintana seemingly too scared to attack, not prepared to put it all on the line, even when opponents are looking vulnerable. Maybe this Tour we'll see a different Quintana, one fired up by his long-range attack in Switzerland and by the internal competition for team leadership. If he falters early on he could find himself pretty quickly in the role of super-domestique for one of the other guys.. 

Mikel Landa - Movistar - 10/1 Best Price (various)

Nairo Quintana 9/1, his team-mate Landa 10/1... seems odd, and almost suggest punters are deciding who they think the real leader of this Movistar team is going to be.. Landa has been freed from Team Sky, but he now finds himself riding as a super-domestique for Quintana, in a race he too could be challenging for victory in. 

In order for Quintana to win, Landa has to give him 100% support and not ride for himself. It sometimes seems like that's an impossible request for Landa as he just seems to do his own thing and attack when he feels like it, even when Quintana is up the road, like on that stage to Arosa, he attacked himself with 11kms to go, with Nairo just 20" up the road.  

He has also left his team leader Froome behind last year on the Peyragudes finish, Froome lost 17" to Landa and 22" to Bardet. He's had a low-key year this year, but has been pretty consistent, taking 6th in Andalucia, 6th in Tirreno Adriatico (with a stage win on the tough climb to Sarnano Sassotteto), 2nd in Itzulia with a very solid ride, it was his 1'16" loss to Primoz Roglic in the flat 19km TT that cost him the race. 

He then just a few weeks back rode in support of Quintana at the TDS, but after rising up to 7th in the GC with some fine climbing performances, he collapsed in the ITT again, finishing 86th and slipped back to 16th on the final GC. He did E3 Harelbeke this year too as preparation for the Tour, finishing 86th with the main pack 14 mins down beside Andrey Amador. At least he finished, more than half the field didn't

It's going to be fascinating watching Movistar - they could be setting off bombs left, right and centre trying to destabilise and disrupt the Skybots, and Landa is sure to play a big part in events. He could be sent up the road on a few stages to draw Sky in to the chase, he could be dragging Quintana clear on the start of stage 17 to isolate Froome from his support riders further down the pack.

Either way it's going to be fun to watch them in action, Landa could well take up the mantle of team leader should Quintana struggle, but if he isn't careful in the opening week it could be all over for him too before the mountains proper start. But if he is close to the top of the GC coming to the final TT, he's going to lose shed loads of time to the likes of Froome and Dumoulin so it's hard to see him winning this race, regardless of how Quintana does. 

Vincenzo Nibali - Bahrain Merida - 10/1 best price

The 2014 champion has probably had the worst season of all the GC contenders, and his worst season in a long time too. His season started badly when he travelled to Argentina for the San Juan season opener, only to get sick and not start the race at all. Outside the top 10 in Dubai, Oman, Tirreno-Adriatico and didn't finish in Itzulia when down in 45th place, 24th in the Dauphiné was pretty poor as well, he was dropped at all the key moments. 

But in between that the 33 year-old showed that he still has some of that magic with an incredible win in Milan San Remo. This whole season looks like it has been a big training camp for June, he's focused his whole year's preparation until now on being in top shape come the 7th July. 

2017 saw him bypass the Tour in favour of having a go at the Giro and the Vuelta, and he pulled off two pretty sensational rides to finish 3rd in Italy behind Dumoulin and 2nd in Spain behind Froome, taking a stage win in each along the way. 

We know what he can do on the cobbles now following his superb ride in 2014 to finish miles ahead of the other GC men, and he has said recently that he has no fear of the cobbles, that he likes riding on them and is looking forward to putting the others under pressure on stage 9. He rode Flanders this year and was in contention for a long time, only fading towards the end, but finished a very respectable 24th, just 1'18" down on Terpstra.

In 2014 he had Jakob Fuglsang guiding him over the cobbles, he's no longer in the same team, so he will look to the likes of Kristijan Koren, Sonny Colbrelli, Heinrich Haussler and Franco Pelizzoti to help him stay at the front and put the pressure on when he gets the chance. 

His form is a major worry though, you'd like to think that he'd have shown a bit more this year, his performance in the Dauphiné was particularly bad, he couldn't stay with any of the GC men and lost 12 minutes on the TDF stage to La Rosiere and 6 mins on the stage to Saint Gervais Mont Blanc won by Adam Yates. He will lose time to the likes of Froome, Porte and Dumoulin in the ITT, his team will lose lots of time in the TTT, it could be over a minute to the likes of Sky, BMC and Sunweb. So he'll be on the back-foot from stage 3. 

And it's an interesting team that Bahrain bring here though - they have other GC men in the shape of Domenico Pozzovivo and the two Izagirre brothers. Pozzovivo had an excellent Giro up until that crazy stage to Bardonecchia won by Froome, when he lost 8 mins, but still finished in 5th overall.

Gorka Izagirre has just been crowned Spanish road race champion, and also finished 2nd in the Spanish TT championships, and earlier in the season he finished 3rd in Oman and Paris Nice. He could be a dark horse for this race should anything happen to Nibali's chances, he can TT and he can climb and can attack on descents. 

Speaking of attacking on descents, that may be the one strong point for Nibali, we all know he is a demon descender, and there are several stages with tricky descents down to the finish where we could see the Shark take a flyer and possibly take a stage win and some time. But I can't see him winning it, and I think his price is a joke.. 

Tom Dumoulin - Sunweb - 14/1 best price

Tom fought hard at the Giro, but he wasn't the same Tom as last year.. yet he came as close to winning it as is possible bar pulling on the jersey on the podium after the stage. 

When Simon Yates was blowing up on the 19th stage, Dumoulin became the virtual leader and traded to under 1/4 to win the Giro. Yet within a matter of hours, it was Froome who was pulling on the Maglia Rosa after stealing the overall victory.  

Winner of the first TT, he pulled on the first leader's jersey, and for the entire rest of the race he sat in 2nd position, and that's where he finished. He climbed with the best and even limited his losses on the brutal Zoncolan to just 37" to Froome, but it was the shock attack by Froome on the Colle Delle Finestre and the bad decisions by Dumoulin, including to allow his group wait for Reichenbach that cost him all the time and the race. 

But Dumoulin is saying he has come out of the race in great shape, that he has never felt so good in the weeks after a grand Tour and he is going to France with the intenton of riding for the win. And the course suits him a lot as far as I'm concerned, the TTT will hold him no fears, in fact he will be looking forward to putting time in to some of his rivals, his team are the World TTT champs after all. 

The ITT at the end of the race will suit as well, but maybe not as much if it had been a flatter course, but also a lot of the climbs are power climbs rather than being brutes like the Zoncolan or the Finestre. He should be ok on the cobbles, his team and power will keep him safe I'd think, and although he has limited experience racing on the cobbles (he DNF'ed his only Tour of Flanders start in 2012) he has finished 22nd two years ago in Brabantse Pijl which has its fair share of cobbles, and he's also done really well in Strade Bianche.

The biggest negative against him might well be his team in the mountains, he doesn't really have one, he could have done with some help on stage 19 of the Giro, but it didn't stop him winning it the year before.. He might struggle a little on the finishes to the Mur de Bretagne and Mende, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see him put time in to some other rivals there.

A lot of the tougher climbing stages finish with descents to the finish, which will help him should be maybe lose 30" or so on the top of the final climbs, he might be able to regain it by the time they reach the finish. He'll have to be on his guard on the shorter, punchier stages, but there's also the chance that he will revel in them, allowing him to punch out big numbers for a short period of time. 

In short, I think Dumoulin, as long as he isn't bullshitting about how good he feels, has a big chance to go really well in this race. He will take up to 2 mins or more off some of his rivals on the TTs, will be lose that much on these climbs? I'm not sure. The 14/1 is tempting on him, I think he's pretty solid for a top 6, could well top 3 it and might even take the win if luck goes his way.. remember after all, his biggest rival for the win here also put a lot in to win the Giro and he'll be fired up to reverse that result with Froome. 

Geraint Thomas - Team Sky - 16/1 best price

So Geraint Thomas.. here we go again with the talk of Geraint Thomas winning the Tour de France.. the form book probably says he has never been in better shape and in with more of a chance of winning the race.

But he has one big problem - his team leader is going for a record fifth win in the race, and we know that Froome is brutally ruthless in getting what he wants. So not only does Thomas have to beat all the others, he has to beat his own team-mate too. 

Spectacular winner of the Critérium du Dauphiné, he climbed incredibly well to lock down the advantage that his team gave him by winning the Team Time Trial on stage 4, going on to finish 3rd, 2nd, 2nd and 5th in the next four stages. The power he displayed when chasing after Dan Martin on stage 5 was pretty impressive, Romain Bardet tried to come after him but was promptly dropped, as Thomas almost caught Martin. 

And again on stage 6, his attack away from the GC group to go after Bilbao was powerful, dropping Martin, Bardet and Yates. Earlier in the year he was leading the Volta ao Algarve after smashing the 20km ITT, but was undone by his own team-mate Michal Kwiatkowski on the final stage when he attacked and won the stage, putting 1'50" in to Thomas. 

He followed that with a stint in the leader's jersey also in Tirreno Adriatico, but after a disappointing performance on stage 4, when he lost 40" he slipped down to 4th (Froome lost 1'10" that day). He eventually finished 4th thanks to the final ITT which pulled him on to the podium. He skipped the spring Classics this year to completely focus on this TDF, and is lightly raced this year, having done just 3,780kms, 2,000kms less than Kwiat for example. 

He is looking strong, he is looking lean and he is looking up for it. But he always seems to find a problem - he crashes more than almost any rider I know and he seems to always have a 'jour sans' when he loses time. He also will have to rely on Froome not being a challenger in order to go for the GC and it's probably unlikely. But should it happen, with the TTT, the cobbles and the ITT, and the way he rode in the Dauphiné, he could well be a challenger. 

Romain Bardet - AG2R - 16/1 Best Price (Ladbrokes)

Romain Bardet was one of my picks last year at 25/1 and he hung on by the skin of his very skinny teeth to a podium spot after a spectacular collapse in the final TT in Marseille. He rode very well throughout the race though and to me deserved his podium spot, he was there or thereabouts on all the key stages and even took a fine stage win on the uphill finish on the Peyragudes when Froome lost a bit of ground. 

He moved up to 7th after finishing 5th on stage 5 to La Planche des Belle Filles and moved up to 3rd after the 9th stage to Chambery and finally moved up to 2nd on stage 18 on the Izoard.. He finished 1st, 3rd, 4th, 4th and 5th on the key mountain stages, but his achilles heel was the two time trials, he was 39" down on Froome after the very first stage and lost another 1'57" in the final TT - he only lost by 2'20" to Froome in the end. 

His team were excellent at times last year, putting Froome and Sky under pressure and Bardet was brave and aggressive when he could. There is less time trialling this year, and the TT that comes on stage 20 is hilly enough to help negate some of his TT weakness. He also has spent the winter working on his TT and AG2R have worked on technology and equipment and he hopes to reduce his losses in the TT to a more manageable amount this year. 

With that in mind, and with the ride he put in in Strade Bianche this year showing that he could go well on the Roubaix stage and the stage to Quimper, he has to be on the short list I think. Vuillermoz, Latour, Dillier, Naesen, Geniez and Domont make up a very strong team and he'll be well looked after. 16/1 is still a decent price considering he has podiumed for the last two years running.  

Conclusion

This is a Tour that could really be as wide open a race as we've seen in a long time, with Porte and Froome dueling for favouritism at the head of the market, but a whole stack of riders behind them that could also get involved in the shake-up as I've listed above.. And it is not just these guys we need to consider - there are a number of possible outsiders that could do a Peraud or a Pinot like in 2014, or a Valverde in 2015, or a Bardet in 2016 or Uran in 2017, 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.