2018 Tour De France Favorites
2019 Tour De France Favorites
On Monday, July 16th, the 2018 Tour de France has its first of two rest days in the tour. And, after Sunday’s cobblestone chaos, the riders and teams need to regroup. Sunday’s Stage 9 featured numerous sections of cobblestone that ended up destroying the peloton, upsetting the GC favorites, and blowing up the hopes of many riders. Furthermore, the first nine stages have really turned this tour into a battle of mental and physical attrition. With that in mind, the tour now shifts gears to head into the high mountain stages of the Alps starting with Tuesday’s Stage 10.
Brussels (AFP) - The 2019 Tour de France embarks from Brussels on Saturday with a mountain-packed course and a more open field than in recent editions.
- Team Sky has been the winner in five of the last six Tour de France runs. Individually Chris Froome has a three-year winning streak. And he has won four of the last five. As a result, he will be a top betting odds for cycling favorite. Four cyclists are tied as the All-Time Tour de France winners with five championships. They are Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain.
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At roughly the half way point, and on the first rest day, let’s take a look and see how the first half of the tour really changed the betting odds and how the favorites for each jersey look now:
The Yellow Jersey
The Tour de France is all about who wins the Yellow Jersey. And this year, Chris Froome was the favorite to win his 5th Tour de France heading into the race. However, he had a few contenders who were expected to challenge him for the overall victory and the yellow jersey. Unfortunately, after a week and half of the tour, some of those favorites are no longer contenders. The following updated odds are courtesy of BetWay:
- Chris Froome opened at +150 and is now -120.
- Richie Porte opened at +450 and crashed out of the tour on Stage 9.
- Nairo Quintana opened at +900 and is now listed at +1000.
- Mikel Landa opened at +1000 and remains the same.
- Tom Dumoulin opened at +1200 and is now +2000.
- Vincenzo Nibali opened at +1200 and is now +800.
- Romain Bardet opened at +1600 and is now +3300.
- Geraint Thomas opened at +1800 and is now +850.
- Jakob Fuglsang opened at +1800 and is now +2000.
- Adam Yates opened at +2000 and is now +2500.
- Primoz Roglic opened at +2200 and is now +1800.
- Alejandro Valverde opened at +2500 and remains the same.
- Rigoberto Uran opened at +2500 and is now +5000.
- Daniel Martin opened at +5000 and is now +6600.
After the Alps this week, the standings will shake out with the top GC contenders high up in the standings while the current leader fall down the rankings. Froome’s biggest challenge might be his teammate Geraint Thomas. GT has been riding better than Froome so far and is higher in the standings as of now. However, GT isn’t an elite mountain climber like Froome and I expect Chris to put the hammer down over the next few stages.
Other contenders to Froome are Vincenzo Nibali who has stayed out of trouble and would probably be in yellow if his team didn’t ride a terrible team time trial in Stage 3. Nairo Quintana has also stayed out of trouble for the most part and is still close enough in the standings to Froome to be a threat. Unfortunately, the biggest threat to Froome coming into the TDF was Richie Porte and he crashed out of the tour for the second straight year.
Here are the Current Yellow Jersey Standings, courtesy of TheTelegraph:
- Greg Van Avermaet BMC – Racing Team
- Geraint Thomas – Team Sky
- Philippe Gilbert – Quick-Step Floors
- Bob Jungels – Quick-Step Floors
- Alejandro Valverde – Movistar Team
- Rafal Majka – Bora-Hansgrohe
- Jakob Fuglsang – Astana Pro Team
- Chris Froome – Team Sky
- Adam Yates – Mitchelton-Scott
- Mikel Landa – Movistar Team
- Søren Kragh Andersen – Team Sunweb
- Vincenzo Nibali – Bahrain-Merida
- Primoz Roglic – LottoNL-Jumbo
- Bauke Mollema – Trek-Segafredo
- Tom Dumoulin – Team Sunweb
- Steven Kruijswijk – LottoNL-Jumbo
- Romain Bardet – AG2R La Mondiale
- Warren Barguil – Fortuneo-Samsic
- Ilnur Zakarin – Katusha-Alpecin
- Domenico Pozzovivo – Bahrain-Merida
- Nairo Quintana – Movistar Team
- Rigoberto Uran – EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale
- Peter Sagan – Bora-Hansgrohe
- Daniel Martin – UAE Team Emirates
- Pierre Rolland – EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale
TDF Betting Advice
Froome is still going to win the Yellow Jersey, but I would wait for him to have a subpar day in the mountains before betting on him, unless you took my advice and bet on him before the tour started. One subpar day could inspire the bookmakers to change his odds to a more favorable line for bettors.
The Green Jersey
The points jersey is being dominated by Peter Sagan right now. Unless he crashes, there’s nobody who can beat him for this jersey. With that said, here are the current green jersey competition odds according to BetWay:
- Peter Sagan opened at -227 and is now listed at -1428.
- Fernando Gaviria opened at +400 and is now +900.
- Dylan Groenewegen opened at +750 and is now +5000.
- Marcel Kittel opened at +1200 and is now +10000.
- Arnaud Demare opened at +1400 and is now +6600.
- Michael Matthews opened at +1400 and is out of the tour due to an illness.
- Mark Cavendish opened at +2200 and is now +14000.
- Andre Greipel opened at +3300 and is now +5000.
- Alexander Kristoff opened at +5000 and is now +5000.
With Michael Matthews abandoning the tour due to an illness, there’s no threat to Sagan’s stranglehold on the green jersey. He will win his 6th green jersey competition unless he crashes out or gets disqualified again. Currently, Sagan has an 81 point lead on Fernando Gaviria before heading into the mountains. Unlike Sagan, sprinters like Gaviria and the rest of the names on this list won’t be able to stick with Peter and will lose points and time to Sagan along the way.
Both Gaviria and Groenewegen have two stage wins coming via bunch sprints. However, neither of them will be able to keep up with Sagan along the hilly stages and in the mountains. These two riders will battle it out to see who the best sprinter in the world is right now.
TDF Betting Advice
I picked Sagan before the tour started to easily win this jersey and he’s proving me right. No, it wasn’t rocket science and I wasn’t the only one to pick him, but Sagan makes every stage more entertaining and you can’t help but root for him on a daily basis.
The King of the Mountains
Tour De France 2018 Favorites
The polka dot jersey competition hasn’t really heated up yet, but it will this week in the Alps. Currently, Toms Skujins leads this competition with 6 points. In reality, this jersey has plenty of hard stages left for riders to earn maximum points.
- Warren Barguil opened at +250 and currently sits at +400.
- Mikel Landa opened at +450 and is now at +800.
- Thomas De Gendt opened at +750 and is listed at +800.
- Damiano Caruso was so far down that I didn’t even have him listed. He’s now at +1200.
- Rafal Majka opened at +900 and has fallen to +1400.
- Adam Yates opened at +1300 and is now at +2500.
- Nairo Quintana opened at +1300 and improved slightly to +1200.
- Daniel Navarro opened at +2100 and remains the same.
- Pierre Rolland opened at +2400 and has fallen to +3300.
- Chris Froome opened at +2900 and is now +1600.
The current leader of this jersey competition isn’t even listed on the board for odds on winning the polka dot jersey by the end of the tour. If he rides well in the Alps, bookmakers are going to have to include him. However, with the Alps starting tomorrow, the real contenders of this jersey will come out to play. I expect moves to be made by Barguil and De Gendt this week. I also wouldn’t be surprised if someone like Teejay van Garderen (+5000) doesn’t go out on a breakaway since he lost a lot of time on Stage 9’s cobblestone craziness.
TDF Bet Advice
This jersey competition definitely requires some patience to see how each rider fares in the Alps. They also have the Pyrenees next week, which will provide even more opportunities to gain polka dot points especially if a rider does poorly this week. I’m sticking with my pick of Warren Barguil winning his second King of the Mountain jersey competition in a row. And, with his odds going up slightly, I say jump on it if you believe he will win. Otherwise, wait until next week to bet on a winner.
The White Jersey
Coming in to the tour, this competition was the least promoted. Partly because there are new faces and a lot of unknowns. However, after 9 stages and almost half of the tour completed, we have a clearer idea of who could win this competition.
- Pierre-Roger Latour opened at +100 and is now -138.
- Egan Bernal opened at +125 and is now +350.
- Guillaume Martin opened at +550 and is now +400.
- Marc Soler opened at +750 and is now +3300.
- David Gaudu opened at +900 and is now +2200.
- Soren Kragh wasn’t even listed and is now +1200.
Kragh is the current leader in this jersey competition by 7 minutes over Thomas Boudat and 7 ½ minutes on Pierre Latour. However, this competition will definitely shake up during the Alps over the next few days. Kragh isn’t known for having the mountain skills that Latour, Bernal and Soler have. So, there’s a great chance that we see a new leader after two stages in the mountains.
Latour is still the favorite for this competition and he has looked strong. Bernal crashed at least once and has struggled to handle the physical and mental rigors of this 3-week long race, but he can hang with the big boys in the mountains and he’s on Team Sky, which is still the best team in this race. Soler might be able to get back into this competition in the mountains as he’s a great young climber. But, he will have to do something extra special to close the gap as he’s in 12th place at nearly 25 minutes down.
TDF Betting Advice
If possible, I would wait at least one or two days in the Alps before placing a bet right now. If you don’t want to wait, then Latour has the best chance right now, but Bernal could be the best climber even though he’s 16 minutes down. He has solid betting value.
Final Thoughts on the Rest of TDF 2018
This has definitely been an exciting Tour de France so far. There have been several crashes that have shaken up the entire tour especially with Team BMC and Richie Porte. With less than two weeks remaining, and all of the big mountain stages still to come, this tour is far from over. I still hold to my early prediction that Froome will win the Tour de France for the 5th time in his career. Sagan has the green jersey locked up and the other two jersey competitions are far from over. Remember, all it takes is one bad day or one crash to completely turn this race upside down. That’s why the Tour de France is the best 3 weeks of reality television each year.
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