Tour de France Jersey Betting 

KOM Jersey

King of the Mountains Betting Preview

The Tour de France King of the Mountains jersey or the Polka-dot jersey as it's also known, is one of the most desired and keenly fought competitions in cycling. It's the second oldest classification awarded in the TDF, first introduced in 1933 and won by a Vicente Trueba, but a prize for the winner was not added until the following year. There was no jersey awarded to the winner though until 1975 when a white jersey with red polka dots was awarded for the first time and was won by Lucien Van Impe (right).

Richard Virenque became the French darling with his drug-fueled exploits in the mountains, he was a super-cool climber, who won the jersey a record seven times. I had the privilege to be on Col de Pas de Peyrol in 2004 when he raced by on his own on his way to a stage victory on Bastille day, it was an incredible day where he was carried up the hill by chants of 'Richard, Richard, Richard'.. I'll never forget seeing him zoom by on a climb I could barely walk up!

The points for the King of the Mountains is scored based on the category of climb that they go over, from the lowest Category 4, to the highest HC or 'Haute Category' climbs. The first over a HC climb scores 25 points, then 20,16,14,12,10 and so on down to 2pts for 10th. A Cat 1 climb scores 10pts for the first over, down to 1pt for 6th. If the stage finishes on a categorised climb the points are doubled, so that's a whopping 50pts are on offer for winning the stage to Alpe d'Huez for example. The difficulty rating for a climb depends on either it's length or its steepness (or both) but also on its position in the stage - they are given a higher rating later in a stage.

This is always a very difficult market to bet on - you don't know who is targeting the jersey at the start and it could be any of about 20 or 30 guys who could have designs on it. It could be decided by a stage or two when a breakaway rider mops up loads of points and then does what he can to defend it over the remaining stages. Or it could come down to a GC man like Quintana just racking up point after point while taking stage victories, especially on the summit finishes where double points are awarded - stages like 10, 12, 19 and 20 will have a big bearing on deciding who inherits the jersey from Rafal Majka. 

The Contenders 

Nairo Quintana - 5/1 Best Price 

Nairo Quintana hadn't been seen in Europe since he took part in the Tour of Romandie at the beginning of May. Since then he went back to Colombia where he had been training hard on his own which has become his pre-Tour routine now. When he came back he rode the Route du Sud and finished second to Contador on the big Queen stage, but the stage was won on the descent and not on the climb. In fact, Quintana looked the stronger to me but played his cards very close to his chest, not giving anything away.

In Romandie he finished 8th overall, 1'42" from Zakarin, but lost most of that time (1'01') in the time trial. On the decisive mountain top finish to Chapex-lac he could only follow Froome rather than go riding after Zakarin and Pinot, but even staying with Froome when you are not in your best shape is something of an achievement!

Last year he skipped the Tour, instead doing the Giro, which of course he won, and the Vuelta, which he crashed out of. In 2013 he won the TDF KOM jersey thanks to consistent finishing, but in particular thanks to the penultimate stage to La Semnoz which he won from Froome. He has won a KOM title on 3 stage races since 2012, and finished in the top 3 of KOM competitions 9 times out of 21, giving him a 43% Top 3 strike rate. 

The key to winning this jersey this year will be winning some of the big mountain finish stages, with 50 points on offer at the HC summit finishes of stages 10, 12 and 20. If Quintana wants to win this race he is more than likely to have to either win, or finish very high up on the key mountain stages. There may be some climbers outside the top GC guys who will target the jersey and may wear it for a while as they nab points here and there on easier stages, but it's unlikely that they might be winning top points on the big GC stages.

With five summit finishes in the race, there are plenty of opportunites for the top GC men to be picking up the big points. If Quintana wants to win this Tour I think he will have to win at least one if not more of these summit finishes, and that puts him in a strong position to win the jersey. He could even start to rack up the big points as early as the first key mountain stage on stage 10, with the HC summt finish on La Pierre Saint Martin.

Like in 2013 though, the final mountain stage to Alpe d'Huez could be crucial to Quintana's hopes for the overall and indeed the KOM jersey. There are many scenarios that could play out of course over the three weeks, but the Alpe stage will likely be the most exciting and interesting. If he is leading the race by a comfortable margin, he can afford to sit on wheels and thus could pass up on the KOM points, he won't be too bothered about that. If it's tight and he needs to make sure of overall victory, he could well win the stage and seal it. If he is not winning and is not in a position to claim back enough time on the final stage then he could well just go and try and win the stage and the KOM jersey to take a big prize from his Tour. 

It's hard to know for sure what sort of condition Quintana will be in as they head in to the final, decisive stages, or indeed whether he will even survive the first week with the potential choas and crashes, particularly on the cobbled stage 4 if it's wet. But we've seen before that when Quintana turns up, he is generally very fit and strong and very hard to beat. He has taken part in the Dwars Door Vlanderen and the E3 Haralbeke to get some cobbled practice in and they have done plenty of recon rides of the tricky opening stages. 

I think he will be fine and may well survive better than others on the opening week. We could see the first salvos fired with the first summit finish on stage 10 and I think he has a big chance of winning the jersey as I expect him to be up there on all the big mountain stages. If he doesn't win the overall he may well take home the consolation prize of the KOM jersey, which to a Colombian is probably the best consolation prize around. He looks a good bet to me at 5/1 each-way with Corals.

Alberto Contador - 12/1 Best Price

Contador is of course going for the big double after landing the Giro in May and if he comes away from this race with the KOM jersey but not the Yellow Jersey it will be seen as a failure. Contador has never won the KOM jersey in the TDF, the Vuelta, the Giro or incredibly in any stage race he has ever raced in as a professional, a pretty mind-boggling fact given how great a climber he is. But he just doesn't seem interested in it at all. He just seems to ignore them completely when focused on the GC goals.

Like Quintana (and all the GC men really) - if he goes well on the mountain stages then he could win it just by racking up the big summit finish wins. I think though given how he will be solely focused on the GC he is not a great winner candidate at 12/1, but he has finished in the top three on 11 out of his last 28 stage races he has completed. Backing him hoping that he'll finish in the top 3 returns 2pt profit for 2pts staked so it's the equivalent of betting even money that he'll finish in the top three, so there isn't value there given his stats of a 39% strike rate. I'll leave him for now I think, especially with the tough opening week.

Chris Froome - 10/1 Best Price

Another fascinating fact similar to Contador's, Froome has neven won the KOM in a stage race either. And his record at finishing in the top 3 is worse than Contador's, standing at just 6 from 19 starts (31% Vs Contador's 39% and Quintana's 43%), but in more recent years he is looking at a 50% strike rate with 6 podiums out of 12 since 2013. 

Froome is now one of the best climbers in the world as he showed in the Dauphiné, when he gets his team to string things out and he then puts the hammer down on some of the hardest sections, there's very few in the world that can stay with him. In Romandie he and Quintana were pretty evenly matched in their inability to chase down Zakarin and Pinot, they will be too very different riders who turn up in Utrecht though.. 

Like Contador, he doesn't seem to have a great love for the competition, for him and Sky it's all about one jersey - yellow. He is highly likely I think though to finish in the top if he can spin his way to several stage victories on the hardest mountain finishes, but again, backing him at 3/4 with a strike rate of 31% isn't a great strategy.

Joaquim Rodriguez - 18/1 Best Price

We may see a different Rodriguez at the Tour, but to me he has lost the zip and the verve to go launching himself off the front on hard mountain finishes, stealing stages and the KOM points. Here's a question for you - how many KOM jerseys has Rodriguez won in his career? Just one. And that was back in the Vuelta of 2005. And his strike rate of Top 3 finishes is just 6 from 28, or just a 21% strike rate. I can't see him winning this to be honest and I don't think he'll make the top 3. A terrible bet at 19/1.

Dan Martin - 25/1 Best Price

For Dan Martin to win the KOM jersey he will have to probably ditch his GC ambitions and focus completely on this prize, something which might not actually be a bad idea. On his recent form and with such brutally hard stages in the Tour this year, he is not going to be winning the GC and even finishing in the top 6 is going to be a challenge I think. Why not go for the KOM? He has a pretty awful record in terms of podiums in KOM competitions in stage races, but then he has never really focused on it and he has not finished quite a lot of stage races!

With Cat 3 points available at the finish of the Mur de Huy and Mur de Bretagne, two stages that should suit him, he could be near the top of the competition heading in to the second week. The first HC climb in stage 10 could well be crucial for how the rest of the race goes for him though. If he can stay with the GC favourites then he may forget about the KOM jersey. In the other hand, if he's left behind and quickly finds himself well down, (possibly compounded by a poor TTT on stage 9) he might go stage hunting and maybe after the KOM.

Vaughters has promised that they are going to the TDF to have fun and cause chaos, they are going to be attacking whenever they can and Martin is sure to be heavily involved you'd think. But maybe there are too many doubts about him to back him before we see what his form is like and if he gets through the first week in one piece. .

Pierre Rolland - 9/1 Best Price

Rolland has been backed a little this week from 14/1 in to as short as 6/1 and to be honest I'm not sure why he's being backed. Ok, the team are desperate for some results and the KOM prize is loved by the French, and I think there is no doubt we will see him try, but being honest, I think he is not good enough. We'll see some heroic breaks probably and he'll probably wear the jersey at some point, but when it comes to the really hard, key stages, I don't think he'll be good enough to stay with the big guys. 

Thibaut Pinot - 22/1 Best Price

Thibaut Pinot stormed to victory in stage 5 of the Tour De Suisse, and caused a bit of a tumble in his TDF betting odds in the process. I don't think he'll be going for this jersey though and have no interest in backing him, although he did look good at the finish of that brutal climb. 

Vincenzo Nibali - 33/1 Best Price

No interest, he'll not be going for this. If he rides very well and is challenging for the GC he could well finish in the top 3 due to good results on the big mountain stages, like he did last year when finishing 2nd in the competition. I'm not sure he'll be scoring big on those mountain finishes though from what we saw of him in the Dauphiné. He'll either be focusing on the GC, in which case he will not care about the KOM, or if he is out of the GC, then he probably won't stoop to chasing a KOM jersey either. No bet.  

Outsiders and longshots

Rafal Majka - 40/1 Best Price

Winner of the mountains jersey in 2014, this was of course as a result of Contador crashing out and freeing him up to ride his own race. It was on stage 13,14 and 17 where he took a 2nd place, 1st and 1st on three summit finishes where he did the damage and overtook Rodriguez. He even got some help from passing motorbikes at one point. 

He's going to be looking after Contador all during this Tour though and despite all his noise about how good he is going and how he's going to blow things apart in the TDF when he hits the front, he didn't exactly set the world on fire on the first big climbing test at the TDS. He failed to go with the leaders and was even beaten by Tom Dumoulin who finished 3" ahead of him in 11th place.

The only way I think he will get involved this year though is if something happens to Contador again, and it's unlikely, so no bet. 

Julian Arredondo - 16/1 Best Price

Now here's a man with a 70% strike rate when it comes to finishing in the top 3 in the KOM Competition in stage races he has finished, and a 40% win record. To be fair though, all bar the Giro in 2014 were in Mickey-Mouse races like Tour de Kumano and Tour of Japan! When he did win the KOM Jersey in the Giro though, it was mostly down to one stage win when he was in a break all day and picked up 78pts to move him well clear of his closest rival Dario Cataldo. 

He hasn't had a very good season so far this year but looked lively when taking 3rd place on stage 2 of the TDS behind Durasek and Dani Moreno. But then on the first big climbing test he failed miserably, coming in over 11 mins down. That sort of form will not help him win his jersey. Yeah, he might be looking to peak in 3 weeks time rather than that day, but the way he was dropped so early in the climb would be a real worry. Also, I have had word that he is going to be riding in support of Mollema and not targeting the jersey, but could go stage hunting at some point. No bet for the jersey even if he has been backed from 25/1 in to 16/1 best price and as short as a ridiculous 8/1 with SportingBet.. 

It's very possible that someone not listed above comes and wins this jersey. There are plenty good climbers in the race and if they can plan their strategy right they could get enough points to hold off the GC rush. Rui Costa is climbing well but I can't see him targeting this; Wilco Kelderman isn't good enough to win the big stages and will be seen as being too dangerous early in the race to let him go off in breaks; JC Peraud is another who could go well, might depend on where Bardet sits and what AG2R decide to do as a team..   

Romain Bardet and Alejandro Valverde are 25/1 but Bardet will be looking for a good GC placing and Valverde likewise but will be looking after Quintana. One that did catch my eye though was Stefan Kruiswijk at 40/1 with Boylesports who are offering 4 places (1/5 the odds). He rode extremely well in the Giro, deliberately targeting the KOM jersey and only losing out by 10pts to Giovanni Visconti. He had led the competition up until the 19th stage, but Visconti got in the break of the day and hoovered up enough points to win him the jersey.

LottoNL-Jumbo don't really have a man for the top of the GC, they could well focus all their efforts on a prize like this instead and I think Kruiswijk will be active and get in lots of breaks again. At 40/1 he could be the lively outsider we're looking for.

There are very few others who are likely to get involved really, but count on there being a surprise or two along the way, with the Colombians bound to get involved!. 

Recommendations:

1.5pts ew on Nairo Quintana at 5/1 with Corals

0.75pts ew on Stefan Kruiswijk at 40/1 with Boylesports paying 4 places

Young Riders

Young Riders Betting Preview

Introduced also in 1975 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 in 1975, it has been won by 35 different cyclists. Of those, six cyclists also won the yellow jersey during their careers (Fignon, LeMond, Pantani, Ullrich, Contador and Schleck).

On four occasions a cyclist 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 Marco Pantani (two wins), Ullrich (three wins - also finishing first or second for the general classification on all three of these occasions) and Andy Schleck (three wins).

This year the competition should really be called the 'Young Rider' competition as it looks like it really is a one-horse race unless some misfortune befalls Nairo Quintana. WInner of the competition two years ago when he finished 2nd in the GC to Froome, Behind him that year were Talansky, Kwiatkowski, Bardet and Dumoulin, a pretty talented crop of youngsters who are now reaching the top echelons of the sport. 

Second favourite to win the Tour at just 11/4, it's going to be hard to see who'll beat him for the White Jersey, and that's why he is trading at just 8/13 best price. I've already spelt out his credentials for winning the race elsewhere, I won't bore you with that again, he looks a shoe-in for this competition and even if he doesn't win the GC, he's likely to be the best placed young rider. Not much value in him at 8/13 so let's look at the possible rivals to him instead.

Thibaut Pinot had been having a good season up to now, good, but not great. His first real challenge of the season was in Tirreno-Adriatico where he finished a creditable 6th, he couldn't go with Quintana when he took off but did come home in the Contador/Uran group. He followed that with a good showing in the Critérium International where he finished 2nd overall, but lost out to old man Peraud because he didn't respond quick enough to his attack on the Col de l'Ospedale, losing to him by 10" overall. He had done a pretty good TT over the short 7km course to finish 4th, but the winning margin and the 10" bonus for Peraud on the final stage stole the race from Pinot.

He had a pretty average Pais Vasco, finishing 10th overall, but started to show increased levels of form again though in Romandie, where he took a great stage win to Champex-Lac. He beat Zakarin, Quintana, Froome, Bardet, Uran and Nibali that day and it helped him to 4th overall in the GC and to victory in the Young Riders category. And just last week he had a very good Tour de Suisse where he has finished 4th, 3rd, 8th and then 1st on the monumental climb to Sölden/Rettenbachgletscher.

It was a strange climb by Pinot, he was dropped by the early surges, he clawed his way back on, he looked cooked and barely able to keep the pace, but then suddenly as everyone else seemed to get really tired, especially the poor Denifl, Pinot suddenly found reserves of energy and just went off on the attack and just seemed to get faster and faster the further up the climb he went. Two observations from this stage and the one in the Critérium - firstly, when he does get going and goes on a full-fas, focused attack, he can be very difficult to catch. But secondly, he seems to struggle at the start of climbs but gets stronger as they go on.

Now that's ok if you're climbing against the likes of Thomas, a just-coming-back-from-injury Pozzovivo and some kid named Hirt, but it's a different ball-game altogether when Sky or Tinkoff-Saxo are pouring it on at the start of a hard climb. If he reacts like he did on those climbs, he'll be left behind and may never regain contact once Contador, Froome, Nibali or Quintana kick things off. 

He is an interesting runner though from this market's point of view, I think he will have a very good Tour but will be in the 5th to 10th bracket, but that should be enough to see him take 2nd place in the White Jersey competition. For him to win it though I think you are gambling on something happening to Quintana, and at 9/2 I don't think it's worth the risk. 

Romain Bardet could run Pinot close, there wasn't much between them in last year's race, only 3'11" in fact, with 3rd place rider Kwiatkowski a further 1hr and 10' back.. In fact, Bardet led Pinot up until the 16th stage to Bagneres de Luchon when riders were all over the road and Bardet lost nearly two minutes to Pinot. On the face of it, Pinot still probably has the edge over Bardet, but Bardet has been riding well, culminating in his fine stage win to Pra-Loup in the Dauphiné. Pinot had a reported weakness when it comes to descending but he seems to have got over it quite a bit since last year, it will be interesting to see if he'll be able to descend as fast as Bardet off the Col d'Allos, if not, Bardet could put a minute in to him like he did in the Dauphiné.

Bardet has an incredible record in Young Riders competitions since he burst on to the scene in 2012, finishing in the top 10 of every stage race he has completed since. He has finished in the top 3 of the Yound Riders 7 out of the last 10 stage races he has completed, winning two of them and finishing 2nd 4 times. In his debut TDF in 2013 he finished 4th in the White Jersey competition, behind Quintana, Talansky and Kwiatkowski. 

These three guys look a class apart from the likes of Kelderman, Barguil and Kwiatkowski but there are two outsiders who could come close. Simon Yates at 33/1 and Louis Meintjes at 66/1. Yates has been riding brilliantly in the last few months, finishing 5th in Pais Vasco, 6th in Romandie and 5th in the Dauphiné. He won the White Jersey in the Dauphiné by 32" from Bardet and finished 2nd in the White competition in Romandie, 32" behind Pinot. On those sorts of form lines he will be pretty close to Bardet and Pinot, but can he keep it up over three weeks? That's the question.. 

Louis Meintjes is going to be a top rider in year's to come, but he's still only 23, in fact he shares a birthday with me, he's just 17 years younger than me! Winner of the White in the Tour of Oman, winner of the GC in the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali in March, winner of the White in the Giro del Trentino and a fine 3rd place in the Queen stage of the Dauphiné behind Froome and Van Garderen, the boy can climb. He does seem to have the odd off day though so I think he might be 4th or 5th this year in this competition.

And that's about it really, can't see anyone else finishing above these guys.  

Recommendation:

Quintana looks a shoe in for this, but at 8/13 best price it's a big gamble to take on before the race starts, might be worth waiting a week. As the bookies are pulling a shitty stunt on this market by either only offering each-way on the first TWO and not THREE or NOT OFFERING EACH WAY AT ALL then it's not really worth backing anyone else.