Tour De France / Editor / 04 July 2009 / Leave a comment Bet Now

With Lance Armstrong joining a team more star-studded than Hollywood Boulevard, the Tour De France makes for a ridiculously complicated betting puzzle, says Jack Houghton. However, the place markets are ripe for some pre-race picks.

Climbing Alpe d'Huez in 2001, Lance Armstrong gave Jan Ullrich 'the look' - a prolonged and piercing glance over the shoulder - right before accelerating away from an Ullrich-headed peloton left languishing, unable to respond.

Such moments defined Armstrong's career. Like no rider before him, he was able to totally dominate supposed rivals. His immense physical prowess, coupled with a single-minded mental resilience, unmatched in sport, made him unbeatable.

When he begins this year's Tour De France, four years older than when he won his last, it is unlikely his psychological attributes will have diminished - but surely he can't match up to the old Armstrong physically? I'm not so sure. Endurance elites in all sports are getting older and older, challenging previously held conceptions about athletic peaks. Just look at Haile Gebrselassie. He's only 18 months younger than Armstrong and shows no sign of stopping his annual assault on the world marathon record. If Armstrong has the desire, there's no reason to think his body isn't able to respond.

That's not to say I'll be backing him to win this year's Tour however. A month ago I wrote that deciphering Armstrong's true odds of winning was, "beyond any intelligence I'm aware of." And that's still the case.

To date, I've only had one bet, laying Alberto Contador to small stakes at [2.14]. The rationale was that, a month ago, it wasn't guaranteed he would line up as an Astana rider. However, when the Tour starts on Saturday afternoon, Contador will indeed be wearing the Astana vest, along with his support riders: Armstrong, Leipheimer and Klodden.

That's right. Contador, a one-time Tour winner, will have a seven-time winner, a two-time podium finisher and another genuine title contender all performing domestic duties for him. That's what's being said publically at least. But who knows what deals have been done internally? Perhaps the Astana umbrella is a convenient veil covering two separate teams? Or perhaps they've agreed that, being more star-studded than Hollywood Boulevard, the team pecking-order will not be decided until the first rest day? Who knows?

It's the most ridiculously complicated betting puzzle to solve and so, as far as the Winner Market is concerned, it makes sense to wait and see. Even if one was able to accurately assess Armstrong's relative fitness compared to the best of today's riders, there's the politics of it all to work out. Add to that the seemingly annual disqualification of a whole host of doped riders and the market looks one to be wary of until the Tour is underway.

Not so some of the other markets. A strange anomaly is that Armstrong - second-favourite in the outright market - is only fourth-favourite in the Top 3 market at [3.4], and sixth-favourite in the Top 6 market at [2.0]. This obviously reflects doubts about Armstrong's true role in the Astana team. If he is, as press releases suggest, only a support rider for Contador, then his own classification position will, the logic goes, be sacrificed. Hence the discrepancy. But the logic doesn't really compute. There's no reason why Armstrong, even if riding out-and-out for Contador, can't also place high in the overall standings. After all, three riders in the last four years have finished in the top six when acting as support crew, so why should Armstrong, second-favourite to win outright, not be second-favourite in the place markets?

Another value bet is Astana in the Winning Team market at around [1.5], which asks which team the winning rider will represent. Note that it is different to the Team Classification market, which looks at the combined time of the top three riders from each team. Short of team implosion, it is hard to see how Astana will not supply this year's Tour winner.

The Tour kicks off with a 15.5km Individual Time Trial in Monaco on Saturday afternoon, for which Fabian Cancellaro is a [1.78] shot. And he's a shoe-in to pick up the first Yellow Jersey. Audaciously brilliant when winning the Olympic Time Trial in Beijing last year, he showed he has retained his form when winning the prologue and overall classification of the Tour de Suisse. It would take a misjudgement on his part to lose in Monaco.

British interest in the Tour centres on Mark Cavendish, but it's hard to get a handle on whether he will be riding to win the Points Classification, or simply for stage wins. It's therefore difficult to assess the prices available in either of those two markets, and it may be better to wait and back him for some of the flat stages when his intentions are clearer.

Recommendations:

Back Cancellara in Stage One Market at [1.78].
Back Armstrong in Top 3 Market at [3.4].
Back Armstrong in Top 6 Market at [2.0].
Back Astana in Winning Team Market at [1.5].