Manx Missile to shoot down French on Bastille Day

Bookmakers have got Stage 13 of the Tour de France down for a big bunch sprint even though 14 July is the most sacred day on the French calendar and, inevitably, Frenchmen will be trying to break away from the peloton on Bastille Day.

Formally La Fete Nationale, which translates as The National Celebration, Bastille Day commemorates the 1790 Fete de la Federation, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille fortress and prison on 14 July 1789.

Almost every year Tour de France organisers schedule a stage on Bastille Day and it is a dream of the French cyclists in the peloton to cross the finishing line first on their country`s national day. However, making the dream into a reality is much harder than the French riders would like.

There has been a Bastille Day stage of every Tour de France since 1995. Only five of those 17 stages have been won by Frenchmen, including none of the last six. David Moncoutie was the last French cyclist to mark 14 July with a stage victory when he won the 187-kilometre ride from Briancon to Digne-les-Bains in 2005. Moncoutie abandoned this year`s race yesterday so he will not be among today`s starters.

If you are going to bet on the 13th stage of this year`s Tour de France then you have a simple choice to make. Either you pick a French rider, ideally one with a history of good results in lengthy breakaways who is not a threat to any of the General Classification frontrunners, or you pick one of the sprinters who have hauled themselves through the Alps.

Frankly, it is impossible to select a French cyclist from out of the peloton with any degree of confidence so either keep your powder dry for another day or back one of the speedsters, the most obvious of which is Mark Cavendish.

Those commentators who predicted that the Manx Missile would abandon this year`s Tour de France once the race went uphill have been proven wrong, with Cavendish 152nd of the 164 riders still in the race, albeit more than two hours behind his yellow jersey-wearing Sky teammate, Bradley Wiggins.

One hundred and twenty-five points adrift of Peter Sagan in the Points Classification, Cavendish has next to no hope of winning the green jersey so the only reason that he is still in the Tour de France and not resting up for the London 2012 Olympic Games is to add to his tally of stage victories.

Cavendish`s Sky team will be keen to keep the race together on Bastille Day because history shows that it is possible to lose time on the coastal road into Cap d`Agde. It may be energy expensive for Sky to do so but it has the team to maintain a high tempo throughout the 217km ride and put Cavendish in position to win his 22nd Tour de France stage.

There is a far degree of variance among bookmakers betting on Stage 13, with early odds about Cavendish ranging from 6-4 to 5-2. Punters should probably steer clear of taking anything less than 2-1 but, at that price and bigger, the Manx Missile is a fair bet on what is a special day.

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15/07/2012     © Frixo 2024