Tour De France 2012 – Outright Winner Betting.
With the disqualification of Alberto Contador the Tour de France offers a slightly wider window of betting opportunity and although the bookies are already marking their cards and it’s not too late to bet on the outright race winner.
That honour will surely fall to Bradley Wiggins who is currently 7/2 with skybet to become the next Tour de France victor closely followed by Cadel Evans who will no doubt have a say in the proceedings.
In an interview with one of the quality papers last month Wiggins explained that his new found form was down to a new diet regime and computer aided simulation to replicate the conditions found on the toughest stages.
By simulating certain stages of the tour and recording the riders wattage output you can measure where they stand in training compared to the real thing.
Pretty clever stuff.
As I’ve mentioned before Team Sky don’t do things by halves and it is no surprise that Wiggins was victorious in the Paris – Nice, what was surprising was the mature way in which he handled his slender lead. Never panicking and riding with surety and purpose. This bodes well for the big one.
Cadel Evans is one of the ugliest riders ever to grace the sport.
I don’t mean that only his Mum could love him, just that his riding style is horrible to watch.
Crouched over the handlebars and waddling from side to side he is the antithesis of Alberto Contador who is all poise and bouncy easiness.
Better to be ugly than banned though I guess and Evans will definitely be on the podium with Wiggins.
If those two are my sure picks for this years race then my sports betting outsider at 33/1 would be Vincenzo Nibali.
Nibali won one of the hardest stages in the Paris nice and is an accomplished and aggressive hill climber. He will have Ivan Basso alongside him although Basso has been badly out of form so far this year.
Lest we forget Nibali won the 2010 Vuelta a Espagne and the Liquigas team is a very capable outfit with some very good domestiques amongst the ranks.