Bradley Wiggins is now no bigger than 9/2 with bodog and William Hill to win the Tour de France after completing a victory in the Paris-Nice last Sunday. Wiggins had led the race throughout and was fastest in the final 9.6km time trial, though he still had just eight seconds to spare over his nearest rival, Dutch rider Lieuwe Westra.
Team Sky have made a terrific start to the year and have high hopes that their man can come out on top on ‘Le Tour’ this year, though a couple of team-mates have now left the squad to step up prepaparations for the Olympics. Wiggins was fourth in the 2009 Tour de France, the joint highest place ever achieved by a Briton, and was flying before last year’s race but crashed out in the first week following a collision. The 31-year-old, who was actually born in Belgium, was a dual gold medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics but a win in the Tour de France would be the zenith of his professional career and many shrewd judges believe he’ll never have a better chance to achieve his goal.
He is as short as 11/4 with sportingbet and BetVictor following his win in the Paris-Nice but defending champion Cadel Evans remains the general 2/1 favourite, despite swerving the traditional race warm-up in France to take in the Tirreno-Adriatico in Italy. Andy Schleck is next best at 13/2 with BetVictor even though he was forced to withdraw from the Paris-Nice suffering from a bout of gastroenteritis. The Luxembourg rider and his Radio Shack team will now have their final preparation for the Tour de France in the Volta a Catalunya, where the weather should be a little warmer. Having already finished runner-up three times in France, surely nobody deserves a first success in the cycling’s most prestigious event more than Schleck but he’ll need to prove his fitness in Spain being a little way behind the eight ball at this stage of the season. Wiggins compatriot Mark Cavendish is regarded as a certaintly to lead the overall points classification in the Tour de France and you can back anyone else in the field to beat him at Evens with bet365 and BetVictor.
