The Tour de France 2020 will be the most unpredictable edition in the race’s recent history and the Criterium du Dauphine is your proof.
It was the strongest lineup the Dauphine had seen in over a decade. The roll call included Team Ineos trio Egan Bernal, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas, Jumbo-Visma trident Primoz Roglic, Steven Kruijswijk and Tom Dumoulin, Arkea-Samsic’s Nairo Quintana, Bahrain-McLaren’s Mikel Landa, Trek-Segafredo’s Richie Porte and Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Julian Alaphilippe, to name a few, with no fewer than 13 Grand Tour titles shared between the field.
None of the above won the race. In fact, none of them even made the podium. Lack of form, untimely crashes, nagging injuries and surprise performances made for one of the most spectacular races in recent memory and an even more remarkable podium.
Usually, the Dauphine is the perfect weather stick for the Tour, the ultimate warm-up race that is so often won by the Tour’s eventual winner or at the very least dominated by the riders that will fight for Tour GC honours.
This year, we expected a battle between Team Ineos and Jumbo-Visma. In the end, neither team posted a rider in the top five. After the Tour de l’Ain the week before, we thought the race would be won by either Primoz Roglic or Egan Bernal, but neither of them finished the race.
The rider who led the race into the final day, Groupama-FDJ’s Thibaut Pinot, was then a shoo-in for the title: he finished second. It was 24-year-old Colombian Education First rider Dani Martinez, in his first race since February, who managed to jump from fifth place to the overall victory on the final day while little-known Guillaume Martin of Cofidis held off some big-name rivals to take third.
Since finishing, Bernal, Pinot and Landa have all reported back injuries while Quintana nurses a bad knee. Roglic is suffering from road rash while a dislocated shoulder will likely rob Kruijswijk of his Tour ride. Then there’s Emmanuel Buchmann of Bora-Hansgrohe who also faces a race for fitness to reach the Tour after crashing at the Dauphine.
It was a whirlwind race that eventually posed as many questions as it answered, with the key ones being who remains the favourite for the Tour, who has now put their hat into the ring and who has fallen from contention.
Who are the favourites for the Tour de France?
Before racing returned in July, 2019 Tour champion Egan Bernal was the clear favourite with the bookmakers to defend his title and make it eight yellow jerseys. After the Dauphine, things are a lot less certain.
A back injury forced the Colombian to abandon the Dauphine before Stage 4 and the team's initial plans of racing the Tour with a trio of leaders has been scrapped with both Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas being left at home.
This could, however, play in favour of Bernal who will now have Giro d'Italia defending champion Richard Carapaz and Andrey Amador as trusty lieutenants in the mountains.
Bernal is still up there with the bookmakers priced at 2/1 (Betfair) but is far from the favourite his price suggests he is.
Jumbo-Visma’s Primoz Roglic is now, unsurprisingly, race favourite at 6/4 (William Hill) and if he and his team manage to stay upright and healthy, it is hard to look beyond him for the yellow jersey.
However, what is interesting, is how the bookmakers have slashed the odds of his teammate Tom Dumoulin. He had not raced for over 400 days prior to the Dauphine but he was the only major Grand Tour contender to go the full five days unaffected by crashes, injury or bad form.
Seventh overall and two minutes down shows that he is still lacking that final bit of form but he is certainly is not far away, as some of his mountain domestique duties for Roglic proved, and this is reflected in his 8/1 price (SkyBet).
The level of uncertainty and unpredictability surrounding this year’s Tour suggest this could finally be the year of the French.
The man leading the charge is Pinot, another struggling with back problems. He managed to fight to the end of the Dauphine, finishing second overall and likely ruing missing out on what could have been a defining victory.
A fragile emotional rollercoaster of a man, we have witnessed Pinot crumble under the demands of bike racing as often as we have seen him dominate as arguably the world’s best climber, and that is why we love him. At 8/1 (Unibet), the bookmakers have faith in Pinot and so do we.
It is also worth noting that performances at the Dauphine did little to shorten the prices of winner Martinez and third-placed Martin for the Tour who are at 50/1 (BetVictor) and 125/1 (SkyBet) respectively.
The ‘Usual Suspects’ of Landa, Quintana, Porte and Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) are all lagging behind in both their performances and prices. Porte at 125/1 (Bet365) is an indication of this.
Other names of note are UAE-Team Emirates youngster Tadej Pogacar at 15/1 (BetVictor) and Alaphilippe at 25/1 (SkyBet), two unpredictable, exciting riders who could certainly profit from an unpredictable Tour.
And if you want one rider in particular to keep an eye on, pluck for form Tour podium finisher Rigoberto Uran. The Education First man has a knack of pulling a result out of literally nowhere, and at 150/1 (SkyBet) he is certainly worth a punt.
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