Tour de France betting preview, picks and analysis: Pogacar v Vingegaard for TDF

Cycling betting tips: Tour de France

3pts Pogacar-Vingegaard straight forecast at 3/1 (Unibet)

2pts Mark Cavendish to win 1+ stage at 2/1 (Unibet)

1pt Soren Wærenskjold to win 1+ stage at 10/1 (Betway)

1pt e.w. Binian Girmay to win points classification at 12/1 (Betway 1/4 1,2,3)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

Following Primoz Roglic stealing the Maglia Rosa from Geraint Thomas at the 11th hour to gain his first Giro d’Italia in our first grand tour of the year, we head to France for the 110th edition of the biggest cycling race of them all, le Tour de France.

With the Grand Depart starting in the Basque country, Bilbao, it's somewhat different start to the Tour than we are maybe used to seeing. This year's Tour covers 3,405km with 56,400 meters of climbing via eight mountain stages, four of them being summit finishes, but only 22km of Time Trialing.

In what promises to be a thrilling three weeks of racing, let's take a deeper look into some contenders and standout bets.

Pogacar to regain the Maillot Jaune

TADEJ POGACAR's 2023 season has being nothing less than astounding, with four victories in six days of racing in the early part of the campaign before asserting his dominance at Paris-Nice when beating his rival Jonas Vingegaard over a minute and a half.

Pogacar's spring classics got off to a slow start by his standards, finishing fourth at Milano-San Remo and third at E3 Saxo Classic before going onto win Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold Race and La Fleche Wallonne. Liege-Bastonge-Liege proved to be a different story however as Pogacar crashed and broke his wrist.

There are now question marks over his fitness and whether he will be at the same level as he was before.

Pogacar will have a stronger support team following the signing of Adam Yates from INEOS Grenadiers. Yates has turned out to be a positive addition to the UAE outfit so far, finishing second behind Vingegaard at the Criterium du Dauphine and winning the Tour de Romandie a few weeks before, and with Pogacar's wrist not expected to be a problem, we may see a superior version of the Slovenian sensation.

Last year, Jumbo-Visma had the luxury of having two leaders, Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic, meaning they were able to take turns at attacking Pogacar while he did all the chasing, as we saw on stage 11 which inevitably led to Pogacar cracking on Col du Granon. Vingegaard went on to win the stage and gained control of the Maillot Jaune which he held onto all the way to Paris.

This year they arrive with only Vingegaard so a change in race tactics will have to be deployed. That being said, Vingegaard has looked mightily impressive with three stage wins at the Itzulia Basque Country along with the General Classification before following it up with two stage wins and the overall victory at Criterium du Dauphine by nearly two and a half minutes.

Vingegaard’s only loss in General Classification this year came at Paris-Nice to Pogacar. He arrives in fine form and will be ready to respond to everything that gets thrown at him in his bid to defend his crown. It's 18/1 bar these two and many bookmakers can't split them, with any other result close to unthinkable.

BORA-Hansgrohe arrive at the Tour with general classification ambitions resting on the shoulders of 2020 Giro d’Italia winner Jai Hindley, the Aussie who will have two experienced domestiques by his side guiding him through his first ever participation in the Tour de France, Emanuel Buchmann and Bob Jungels.

Buchmann finished fourth in the 2019 edition while Jungels won a stage at last year’s race. Hindley though has more than three minutes to find on Vingegaard based on Criterium du Dauphine form, and a top-10 finish looks about the limit of his realistic ambitions.

Enric Mas finished 2022 in strong form after dropping out of the Tour de France due to a positive Covid-19 test, finishing second behind Belgium sensation Remco Evenepoel at Vuelta a Espana, winning Italian one-day race the Giro dell’Emilia, and rounding off the year with another second place finish at Il Lombardia.

It was looking like the Team Movistar rider had turned a corner after his best ever results but it's been an underwhelming 2023 to date, and my view is that he will be using this Tour de France as a warm-up for a run at the Vuelta a Espana, which begins at the end of August.

AG2R Citroën Team General Classification hopes rely on the Australian rider Ben O’Connor, who secured the team’s best finish back in 2021 when he just missed out on a podium place.

2022 was a year for O’Connor to forget as he crashed out of the Tour with a torn glute muscle and then went on to finish eighth at the Vuelta despite some high expectations. However, this year O’Connor is slowly starting to look like the 2021 version, all but keeping up with Vingegaard and Yates at Criterium du Dauphine on his way to finishing third.

He is a real contender to get on the podium and there's some appeal in odds around the 11/2 mark that he does so.

Ultimately, Pogacar and Vingegaard are in a league of their own and I’m backing Pogacar to take revenge after last year and gain his third Tour de France victory in four years, with Vingegaard following him home as they pair finish well clear in what hopefully will be a battle for the ages.

Cav's last dance

Just when you thought MARK CAVENDISH wasn’t going to find a team for the 2023 season after his contract ran out at Soudal-Quickstep Alpha Vinyl last year, Astana Qazaqstan stepped forward to give Britain's most successful cyclist a lifeline with the sole goal of breaking Eddie Merckx’s record.

Both riders are on 34 Tour de France stage victories and this is Cavendish’s last chance to break the record as he announced that he will be retiring at the end of this season. The team is built around looking after Cavendish and making sure he has the best chance possible to break the record, and they’ve brought in Cavendish’s former lead-out man Mark Renshaw as staff to help the team prepare along with riders such as Cees Bol and Luis Leon Sanchez.

Confidence will be high in the Astana camp as they came away with the penultimate sprint victory at this year’s Giro d’Italia with the Manx Missile and there is no reason why he can’t break this record in his last dance. Back him to win a stage or more at a generous 2/1.

Wærenskjold to deliver Norwegian glory

UNO-X Pro Cycling Team are one of this year’s wildcards. Despite that, they are not to be underestimated and have riders more than capable of picking up a stage victory.

The vastly experienced Alexander Kristoff and highly-rated SOREN WÆRENSKJOLD will be aiming for top 10 finishes on the sprint stages leaving Tobias Halland Johannessen, Torstein Træen and Anthon Charmig to fight for stage victories in the mountains.

Two-time Norwegian Road Race champion Ramus Tiller is also an option for the hilly stages and is good form going into the Tour after successfully defending his Dwars door het Hageland title so they could be in for some fun over the following three weeks.

With the versatility of riders at their disposal it would be no surprise to see the Norwegian team pick up a stage win maybe even two. However the rider I will be paying most attention to is Wærenskjold, who is versatile as both a sprinter and time triallist, more recently winning the Norwegian National Time Trial Championship and sprinting his way to victory at the Saudi Tour earlier on in the year.

With the guidance of Kristoff at his disposal, Wærenskjold could be the rider to deliver UNO-X Pro Cycling Team their first ever victory at the Tour at the first time of asking. At double-figure prices, he's well worth backing to do so.

Bini's quest for Green

BINIAM GIRMAY will lead Intermarche – Circus – Wanty quest for the green jersey and the Eritrean rider, who has already won a grand tour stage at the Giro d’Italia, can sprint his way to success.

The 2022 Gent-Wevelgem winner will have lead-out men Adrien Petit and Mike Teunissen guiding him all the way to the finish line as they did successfully at this month’s Tour de Suisse, where Girmay out-sprinted Arnaud Demare, Wout van Aert and Jordi Meeus.

Girmay can climb much better than many of his sprint rivals and can even power himself into contention on the punchy finishes where pure climbers may not be able to hold on, picking up valuable points in the process. He rates a smashing each-way bet before the action begins on ITV and Eurosport this Saturday.

Posted at 1700 BST on 27/06/23

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