In 12 days the 111th Tour de France holds its Grand Départ in Florence, Italy, a no-fooling-around medium mountain stage with seven categorized climbs over 206 km. The two traditional warm-up stage races, the Critérium du Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse, were won by riders who have stood on Tour de France final podiums. What can be concluded from these two eight-stage contests regarding the upcoming Biggest Race in the World?
Derek GeeCee
Note: Israel-Premier Tech has not released an official Tour lineup, but Derek Gee and Hugo Houle have been on procyclingstats’ start list since June 3.
How astonishing it was to watch Derek Gee go from raider extraordinaire to GC man at the Dauphiné. A stage win, a day in yellow and a podium—not too shabby. Not only was he one of the best climbers in the race, he was also one of the best time trialists. Since Matthew Riccitello is off to the Vuelta a Espana, and Stephen Williams has cooled off significantly since he took the Tour Down Under, Gee goes into the Tour as Israel-Premier Tech’s hottest stage racer.
This means that in his debut Tour he won’t be hopping into the breakaways like he did at the 2023 Giro d’Italia. More’s the pity.
Right now, Gee’s odds of winning the Tour are 10,000 to one, the same as Mikel Landa, Richard Carapaz and Tao Geoghegan Hart. He must be in the conversation for the final GC top-10.
UAE Team Emirates will be by far the strongest team
Tadej Pogačar is the clear favourite to win the race, which will give him a hat trick of yellow jerseys. He utterly dominated the Giro d’Italia and has won every race he entered this year bar Milan-San Remo, where he was third.
The Slovenian brings the strongest team. Adam Yates, third place in last year’s Tour, and João Almeida tore up the Tour de Suisse, winning two stages a piece and finishing one-two on the podium. Juan Ayuso took the Itzulia Basque Country crown, raced to fifth in the Tour de Romandie and was eighth in the Dauphiné before not starting Stage 6, having been one of the unfortunates who crashed hard on Stage 5.
One online betting site has Pogačar, Yates, Almeida and Ayuso all in the top 8 riders with the best odds to win the Tour. UAE-Emirates is a real Murderer’s Row and it should boss the Tour.
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