Tour de France predictions: Primoz Roglic can keep Slovenia on Grand Tour map

Free cycling tips, best bets and analysis for the 2022 Tour de France.

Where to watch

Stage One
Eurosport & ITV4, 3pm Friday

Best bets

Primoz Roglic to win the Tour de France
1pt 4-1 general

Jonas Vingegaard to win the Tour de France
1pt 4-1 general

Aleksandr Vlasov to finish above Enric Mas
4pts 8-11 bet365

Tour de France preview

Slovenia is by no means the largest country in Europe, in fact it’s a tad smaller than Wales in square kilometres, and with a population just north of two million it isn’t one of the most populous either. But in cycling terms, it’s currently a giant.

Thanks in large parts to the exploits of Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic, Slovenian riders have won five of the last eight Grand Tours (the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France or Vuelta a Espana), four Monuments (the sport’s five most prestigious one-day Classics), an Olympic time-trial gold medal and numerous other stage races in recent seasons.

To put that in some context, the Netherlands, a country synonymous with cycling and whose first Grand Tour success came way back in 1967, have also won five Grand Tours and only one since 1980.

And there is a great chance that one of Pog or Rog will continue Slovenia’s recent dominance of cycling’s biggest three-week races at this year’s Tour de France, which gets under way in Danish capital Copenhagen on Friday.

Young phenomenon Pogacar, seeking a third Tour success in a row, is 8-11 favourite while three-time Vuelta winner Roglic is a 9-2 chance. Bar Roglic’s Danish teammate Jonas Vingegaard, who is also 4-1, it is 16-1 the field.

At just 23 years of age Pogacar is already the youngest Tour winner in over a century and there doesn’t appear to be much that he can’t do on two wheels.

His two Tour wins to date couldn’t have been more different. In 2020 Pogacar trailed Roglic by just shy of a minute heading into the penultimate stage, a time trial up La Planche des Belles Filles – which the race revisits this year – but ended up winning by 59 seconds after producing one of the outstanding rides in recent Tour memory.

Last year, meanwhile, Pogacar stamped his authority at the end of the first week, opening up a sizeable advantage over his main rivals on stage eight which he would never look like relinquishing. That same day Roglic retired from the race after a series of heavy crashes in the opening stages took their toll.

Roglic has had his fare share of bad luck at Grand Tours, especially when targeting the yellow jersey, but if he does have one advantage over his younger compatriot then it is the strength of his Jumbo-Visma team.

The Dutch outfit have moulded themselves in the image of arch-rivals Ineos, packing their roster with star climbers who would be leaders in their own right at most other teams and backing them to dictate affairs on the flat and in the mountains.

Roglic is set to share leadership duties with Vingegaard, who finished second after taking up the mantle upon Roglic’s abandonment last year, and they can count on the ludicrously talented Wout van Aert, 2019 third place Steven Kruijswijk and American climber Sepp Kuss in their bid to usurp Pogacar.

The reigning champion doesn’t quite have the same quality in his service, although that could well count for nought if he continues his prodigious progress. That said, a similar Jumbo-Visma squad had helped Roglic keep Pogacar at arm’s length in the 2020 Tour prior to that fateful time trial.

And if stage 20 proved decisive two years ago, then there is the potential for it to do so again if Roglic and Vingegaard can keep pace with Pogacar in the mountains.

Olympic time-trial champ Roglic, in particular, should relish the 40.7km test of power on the penultimate stage.

The Jumbo pair bossed this year’s Criterium du Dauphine, the traditional Tour warm-up, securing a one-two overall and on the final stage. Indeed, the 40-second advantage held by Roglic at the end of the race was almost exclusively gained on the 31km time trial.

Co-leadership can be a risky strategy but it has worked as recently as 2018 when Geraint Thomas seized his opportunity as Team Sky’s wildcard option when all eyes were on Chris Froome. And having to mark two riders from the same side is a tactical conundrum Pogacar hasn’t faced before.

With no market on the team of the winning rider it could be worth splitting stakes between Roglic and Vingegaard. At 9-2 and 4-1 apiece that means you are getting around evens about the pair against Pogacar.

There don’t appear to be many obvious alternatives to the front three but backing Bora-Hansgrohe leader Aleksandr Vlasov to finish higher in the general classification than Spaniard Enric Mas with bet365’s looks a good proposition.

Vlasov was one of a number of riders who had to leave the recent Tour de Suisse early after a Covid outbreak ravaged the race, but he had been in fine form up until then.

The Russian had won the stage prior to pulling out and won the overall classification at the Tour of Romandie at the end of April.
Mas, meanwhile, has not had the best of seasons and withdrew from the Dauphine before the final stage, although he was way down on GC at that point anyway.

Vlasov had over three-and-a-half minutes in hand over Mas at the Tour of the Basque Country and he is a worthy 8-11 shot to hold sway over the Spaniard again in France providing he is fit and well.

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