Thursday's Tour de France Stage 12 betting preview, free tips & TV details

TV: ITV4, Eurosport 1 & S4C, 10.50am Thursday

Now things get serious. Four days of crucial action in the Pyrenees start today with a long but not especially tough mission that takes in two first-category climbs and culminates in a high-speed 30km descent.

With three even more challenging days to follow, comprising the only individual time trial and then two far harder days in the mountains, Thursday's test is unlikely to see the yellow jersey aspirants wasting sweat on a stage success, with the first 130km of rolling terrain providing the perfect platform for a group of decent climbers who are too far back to require the big guns to chase them to kick clear.

Identifying who that might be is no easy task and this is one of those days when you could have ten attempts to name the winner and find them all calmly ensconced in the bunch while others contest the win, but there are a few likely lads who should be doing their utmost to get in the escape group, especially as the king of the mountains battle ratchets up a notch from here.

The most obvious of those is Vincenzo Nibali, who is well out of the yellow jersey scrap but is bound to come to life sooner or later.

Lotto Soudal pair Tim Wellens and Thomas De Gendt are riding like men with limitless energy and one or both should be active, while Warren Barguil is another who will not be turning up just to enjoy the scenery.

Ilnur Zakarin has fallen miles off the pace so is either bang out of form or targeting stages, and if it is the latter he could be interesting, while Luis Leon Sanchez may well fancy a crack at this.

The Astana rider is a superb stage-sniper and this might be the one his marker pen landed on when he first digested the route, albeit he is probably going to need to be in a breakaway that does not include any of the elite climbers.

Should the overall contenders decide to go for this, preference would be for Thibaut Pinot, whose excellent work in the first week was ruined when he missed the split on Monday and who will almost certainly try to push on towards the top of the second ascent and then use his daredevil descending to gain back time as they hurtle to the finish.

He is of interest in match bets against any of the other leading contenders so keep an eye on prices when they are issued Thursday morning, although this is a day for watching and learning rather than heavy punting.

Recommendations
L L Sanchez
1pt win 50-1 Betway
I Zakarin
1pt 33-1 Betway

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