Nibali value to upset Le Tour favourites

Bookmakers believe that this year`s Tour de France, the 99th edition of the world`s most famous cycling race, will be won by either Bradley Wiggins or defending champion Cadel Evans.

Combine the generally available odds of 5-4 about Wiggins and 2-1 about Evans and what you get is a price of 2-7 that either the Belgium-born Briton or the Australian triumphs.

Those are very short odds when you consider that Wiggins has not made the top three in any of his five previous Tour de France rides, failing to complete the course twice, and Evans had the 2011 Tour de France fall into his lap.

It is not to say that Wiggins and Evans do not deserve to be rated the favourites. Wiggins has been the form cyclist of 2012, wining the Paris-Nice, Tour de Romandie and Criterium du Dauphine and, in doing so, becoming the first person ever to take out those major events in the same year. And Evans, as tough as old boots, a prerequisite for Tour de France success, was runner-up in the Criterium du Dauphine.

But surely there has to be better value available somewhere down the betting list considering that 2-7 seems incredibly short odds about either a Wiggins or an Evans victory.

Vincenzo Nibali stands out from the crowd at around the 20-1 mark. The Italian rider has won a Grand Tour - he was first in the 2010 Vuelta a Espana - and he racked up back-to-back podium finishes in the Giro d`Italia in 2010 and 2011.

Nibali has been a consistent performer this year, with a win in the Tirreno-Adriatico as well as top-three placings in the Milan-San Remo and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. And crucially, he decided to skip the 2012 Giro d`Italia to concentrate on the Tour de France. He looks like a man who means business.

Ideally suited to competing in multi-stage races, Nibali is back in the Tour de France after a two-year absence from the great race. In 2009, the man they call The Shark finished seventh, only 94 seconds behind fourth-placed Wiggins.

There is a lot of talk about how this year`s Tour de France course will suit Wiggins and Evans but it has the potential to be friendly towards Nibali as well. Two of the pivotal mountain stages end with long descents and the 27-year-old Italian is one of the leading descenders in world cycling.

Nibali has a strong team behind him, including Ivan Basso and Sylvester Szmyd, and he has been working hard on improving his time-trialling ability. It has been his downfall in the past but he is getting better at it.

Tour de France debutant Peter Sagan is odds on across the board to win this year`s points classification, otherwise known as the green jersey competition. While the Slovakian teammate of Nibali has talent to burn, he is extremely short odds to strip the jersey off the back of Mark Cavendish.

Defending champion Cavendish has to be the value betting option. Yes, the Manx man has one eye on the London 2012 Olympic Games but he is a proven Tour de France commodity having completed the last three runnings of the race, winning 16 stages in that time and placing no worse than second in the points classification. That is some record.

Cavendish is around 4-1 to win the green jersey competition for the second time and that looks like a generous price.

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29/06/2012     © Frixo 2026