Tour de France Betting Tips, Preview and Predictions

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Tour de France Betting Tips

For the first time in 30 years, the Tour de France kicks off in Germany. The city of Düsseldorf hosts the famous ‘Grand Depart’ where 220-odd riders begin a gruelling 3,500-kilometre ride to the beautiful city of Paris. The race should be an attacking race this year considering five of the stages are hilly. France’s five mountain ranges – the Jura, the Massif Central, the Vosges, the Pyrenees and the Alps – all feature, with 23 climbs classified as Category 1 or 2 during the event.

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The favourite among the hundreds of competitors is three time champion Chris Froome, who the bookmakers are convinced will be able to defend his crown. Froome is competing to win his third Tour de France title in a row (his other title came in 2013) and Team Sky’s fifth title overall.

Froome hasn’t actually managed to win a race this season and has severely struggled for form. At Romandie, he was far off the pace in the time trial and mountain stages. He fared poorly at the Dauphine, a race he consistently used as a platform for greatness before Tour de France in years gone by. Thankfully, Froome is still with Team Sky, the strongest team in the race with a solid history at the grandest stage. Nonetheless, odds of 13/8 with Betfred just don’t jump off the page.

Australian Richie Porte notably moved from Team Sky to BMC in 2016 and has been the best stage performer this season. He bettered his previous second finish at the Tour Down Under, comfortably taking first place this year, as well as winning the Tour de Romandie. He also delivered a strong runners-up performance at the Dauphiné, finishing well ahead of underperforming Froome in second place. Although Porte looks powerful, determined and in magnificent form, his last Tour de France performance was very disappointing and it’s difficult to back him on the back of last year’s fifth place finish. He can be backed at 2/1 with SkyBet which, regardless of his improvements, just doesn’t smack of value.

Our tip rests with Movistar’s ‘Nairoman’ Nairo Quintana. He flew onto the Grand Tour scene back in 2013 and it didn’t seem like we’d have to wait long to see Quintana win himself a Tour de France. After a disastrous 2014, he followed that 2013 second place finish with another runner-up rank in 2015 and a 3rd overall finish in 2016. Following only first and second place finishes this year, he’s looking like a rider who can topple Froome and take advantage of his weak form. Movistar have maintained that Quintana is a competitor who performs better in his second Grand Tour of a calendar year and his Vuelta win in 2016 bodes well for that argument.

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Provided Quintana can keep himself in contention as the final stage approaches, he can finally topple Team Sky’s regular Tour de France hero Froome and earn himself that victory we have been anticipating for far too long.