The latest edition of the most famous cycling road race in the world, the Tour de France starting on July 2nd and runs through to July 24th. It is one of the most gruelling, physical tests in the world of sport and this time there is a bit of history being created for the route. There will be a new start point for the race as it kicks off from Manche (Mont-Saint-Michel) for the first time ever. There will also be a stop in Andorra as well this season for the twenty two teams taking part in the Tour de France 2016.
There are 21 stages of the race overall and it is a total of 3,535 km (2,197 miles) which will feel like a lot more than that on the legs going up the mountain stages. The eighteen UCI World Teams are all there at the race while four wildcard teams got an invite as well.
The pre-race favourite is Chris Froome who is a 6/4 price to go out and defend his title. The Team Sky Rider won with a time of 84h 46’ 14” and that put him with just over a minutes lead from Movistar rider Nairo Quintana and five minutes ahead of Alejandro Valverde. Froome was the General Classification winner and was the Mountains Classification winner too. Spain’s Valverde is a long 80/1 shot to get the title this year and really he went into last year’s edition with a lot of hype and expectation on him delivering the goods.
However, the Movistar team is really there just to support Nairo Quintana and they are really backing the Colombian to get his hands on the title for the first time in his career. Froome is running as the outright favourite at a price of 11/10 to take the General Classification title with Quintana at 13/8. The only other man in the field pre-race coming in at under double figures is Alberto Contador at 11/2 who was fifth in last year’s edition, almost ten minutes off the pace of winner Froome. If you want to push for a straight forecast in Tour de France 2016 betting then Froome/Quintana is a 5/2 poke, with Quintana/Froome at 3/1.
Peter Sagan is worth a crack at the Points Classification market for a price of 1/2 as it’s unlikely anyone is going to get close to touching the Slovakian against. Marcel Kittel is in a 9/2 with Andre Greipel at 13/2.
Tour de France 2016 Winner Odds
Chris Froome 11/10, Nairo Quintana 13/8, Alberto Contador 11/2, Fabio Aru 16/1, Richie Porte 18/1, Thibaut Pinot 22/1, Vincenzo Nibali 33/1, Tejay van Garderen 40/1, Romain Bardet 50/1, 80/1 bar
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Tour de France 2016 Featured Stages
Stage 10 this year is a special one as it goes off from Andorra. This is the Escaldes-Engordany – Revel stage. This is a medium-mountain stage going over 198 km. It goes off from Port d’Envalira at a height of 2408 above sea level and finishes down at 217 in revel.
Stage 11 is a nice flat stage for the riders coming off the mountains and goes from Carcassonne – Montpellier for a shortened 164 km ride. There will be a big sprint in this one across one of its lowest points in Pezenas.
Then Stage 12 switches back to the mountains after going off from Montpellier on July 14th. This is a beast of a ride and it just gets worse and worse for the rider. There’s a spirit in Molleges just after 100km of flat riding from the start and then the punishment begins with a category 4 climb followed straight after by a category three climb. Then the riders hit a massive hill climb (hors categorie – which means that it’s beyond classification) up Mont Ventoux to 1912 m to finish the stage.
As well as making a trip to Andorra, the Tour de France 2016 also runs through Switzerland this year. The riders get a rest day in Bern on July 19th before kicking off again on July 20th from Bern and finishing in Finhaut (Switzerland) for Stage 17. This is a mountain stage which involves another HC (hors categorie). There are four climbs in this tremendously tough stage.
Another of the big mountain stages happens on July 22nd on the Albertville – Saints-Gervais-les-Bains stage which is the 19th stage of the Tour de France 2016. This goes through the Alps and is a series of four climbs, the to one peaking at the finish at St Gervais Mont Blanc which is a category one climb, but the riders will have come through a HC climb before that.
Then Stage 20, which is the penultimate stage of the Tour de France 2016. This is the final Mountain Stage of the race going over 146 km the same distance as stage 19. This is a relentless test for the riders with another four climbs, two of them category one, a category two and then a big HC climb to Col de Joux Plane before descending to the stage finish at Morzine-Avoriaz.
Tour de France History and Stats
With Lance Armstong having been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, it has left four men as the joint-most successful rider in the race (general classification). You have Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain each with five wins of the race. Then with three wins each you have Philippe Thys, Louison Bobet and Greg LeMond. There have been thirteen other riders who have claimed the race titel twice, including Britain’s Chris Froome with titles in 2013 and 2015.
Britain has won the race just the three times, with Froome’s two adding to Bradley Wiggins’ title in 2012. It’s been a good period for British rider with them having taken three of the last four editions of the Tour, with only Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali breaking them up in 2014. France have produced both the most number of wins and winning cyclists as well in the history of the Tour de France. There have been 21 French winners of the race, combining for 36 titles.
Belgium are the other other nation to have produced winners in double figures, with 10 winning cyclists combining for 18 titles. Spain have claimed twelve Tour de France titles, with Italy 10. The only other nations to have produced a title are Luxembourg, the UK, the USA, Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Ireland and Australia.
The famous race was started in 1903 and it was only because a newspaper, called L’Auto wanted to increase its sales. The race has been littered with controversy, from the most famous case of Lance Armstrong having been stripped of his seven titles. But the first disqualification of a winner was Maurice Garin in just the second edition of the race for allegedly having been moved along by a car or rail.
Of the first sixteen editions of the race, fifteen of them were won by either a French or Belgian rider. The only exception in that period behind when Francois Faber from Luxembourg won in 1909. The race has grown substantially from the early day, the first three editions coming in under 3,000km before hitting its peak in the 1926 edition at 5,745 km. The last time the race went over 5,000 km was in 1929. Aside from the breaks for the first and second World Wars, the Tour de France has been a staple of the sporting calendar.
Tour de France 2016 Predictions
First things first, Alberto Contador has been doing a tremendous amount of work this year and really hasn’t hit big heights anywhere despite a spattering of podium finishes. Vincenzo Nibali will be running support for Fabio Aru with Nibali already having said that he is targeting the Olympics this year which makes sense after having won the Giro d’Italia this year. He’ll be saving himself for Rio.
Chris Froome has been in great form beating Richie Porte and Contador in the Criterium du Dauphine. He looks a great shot to get pretty close to repeating his feat from last year. But is is Porte, who has been very busy this year as well like Contador, who has made some great progress this season and would make a great dark horse shot, but he did fall away towards the end of the recent Dauphine.
So Froome should have the beating of all of those really and that leaves Quintana. There is a suspicion that the exciting Colombian is ready to throw everything including the kitchen sink at this one. He hasn’t ridden since the Tour de Romandie and looked in very, very good form on the climbs on his way to winning Romandie and Cataluyna this term. Quintana looks to have been saving himself for this and his team is backing him heavily here and he looks as if he can go all the way and claim the title.
