Cycling: Tour de France (July 4-26)

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I'm having trouble copying the odds into here, so I'll leave this post free for a mod to put the prices into :ok

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Re: Cycling: Tour de France (July 4-26) 20pts - Oscar Pereiro Top 10 Finish @ 9 Sportingbet (Currently 6s) When I saw this price I couldn't believe it, which is why I've assigned this one 20 points! (Note: I got on this last week and the odds have moved in to 6s) With Valverde out due to the Italian suspension Pereiro will now be the GC leader or co-leader. He's a strong time trialist and very good up the mountains too. In the past 5 years he has finished in the Top 10 four times. Last year was the year he failed as he crashed out whilst in 10th overall. When you consider he has been riding for Valverde for most of those years it's a very impressive effort and so I can't see why he can't at least do the same again this tour. The only negative is that he's had that bad injury from the tour last year, but I think he's had more than enough time to recover. I think Contador + Astana, Evans, Menchov, Andy Schleck, Sastre will probably take 6 of the top 10 spots, but there's still 4 other spots which I think are very much there for the taking. I honestly make Pereiro a 50% chance of making the top 10, but even if I am overestimating that, I'd still have said he's at least a 30% chance. Given the odds this is outstanding value. 3pts E/W - King of the Mountains - Franco Pellizotti @ 41 (E/W 1/4 1-2-3) PP Having rode third in the Giro Pellizotti is going to join the team in France, where I expect Kreuziger will be the main GC rider with Nibali. I don't believe Franco is riding for the GC but for stage wins. If he goes for a win in the first mountain stage, which he may well be allowed to do if he's lost enough time in the two time trials, then he'd be first over the Hors Category finish too, which would result in 40 points. We saw last year Riccardo Ricco come to the tour, look for stage wins only, got an early mountain one and from there went for the Polka win by default. I think a very similar thing could happen to Pellizotti here at the tour and I think the odds available are very attractive. 1pt E/W - King of the Mountains - Cadel Evans @ 67 (E/W 1/4 1-2-3) PP I'll be honest here and tell you I think Cadel is a very small chance to win this market. I'm taking this basically for the E/W odds, but they are really good. Evans has shown in the Dauphine a greater willingness to attack, and given he'll need to in order to defeat Contador, I think we will see a more attacking tour from the Aussie. If this is the case he will score a fair few mountain points by default. He came 4th in 2007 in this classification and I think a top 3 is a strong possibility. 2.75pts** - Nation with Most Victories - Germany @ 41 Sportingbet Spain is a big favourite but I don't see how it's justified. Sure they have Contador, but he's going to win the tour, not a bunch of stages. Freire is their only sprinter and Sastre et al aren't definite stage winners. What I like about Germany is that they have many riders capable of winning different profile stage: Tony Martin and Burt Grabsch are an outside chance of a time trial win whilst Jens Voigt, Fabian Wegmann and Marcus Burghardt are often in breakaways. Add to this Linus Gerdemann for a possible mountain stage win and you already have a possible 2-3 stage wins. The key to this bet though is the two very fine sprinters that will be representing Germany; Heinrich Haussler and Gerald Ciolek. I'll be the first to admit this bet has no hope if Cav dominates the sprints like he probably should, but if he doesn't then these two guys are definitely in the top 5 sprinters going around right now. ** Odd Points value assigned due to being stake limited with Sportngbet