Tour de France: Stage 20 betting preview, prediction, free tips & TV details

ITV4, Eurosport 1 & S4C from 12.45pm Saturday

If the 2019 Tour de France was a fictional movie then Stage 19 was the moment that the director, instead of letting the pulsating drama play to a conclusion, suddenly decided to introduce a random twist to the script that had the audience complaining it had now become utterly ridiculous and far-fetched.

The penultimate day in the Alps had started with a tragic plot line as a tearful Thibaut Pinot, one of two French hopes for victory, was forced to climb off his bike and into the team car, his race having been ended by a thigh injury incurred when he collided with another rider’s handlebars while trying to avoid a crash on Wednesday.

But that harrowing sight was relegated to a relative footnote by what was to follow. First Egan Bernal kicked clear of his yellow jersey rivals on the crucial ascent of the col de l’Iseran, opening up a big gap as he went over the top of the climb, while race leader Julian Alaphilippe finally cracked and was distanced by his yellow jersey rivals.

But as the riders descended before the final rise to Tignes the road ahead became impassable by a blizzard and a mudslide, TV pictures showing a snow plough making a hopelessly unsuccessful attempt to clear it.

The riders were instructed to stop and race officials decided to abandon the rest of the stage and use the times taken at the top of the Iseran, which means Bernal goes into Saturday's final mountain stage with a provisional lead of 45 seconds over Alaphilippe (times were still being ratified on Friday night), with Thomas third at 1:03, Kruijswick fourth at 1:15 and Buchmann fifth at 1:42.

Bets on the stage were settled in a variety of ways, not all of which caused perfect customer satisfaction. Some bookmakers paid out on the result race organisers used for calculating the general classification, while Coral, Ladbrokes and Sky Bet were among those who voided all bets, while Betfred and BoyleSports commendably paid out on Bernal and voided losers.

It was a horrible outcome for French fans, but virtually all of Colombia will be glued to the action with Bernal no shorter than 1-10 to become the first South American champion. Even though this has been one of the most unpredictable bike races of all time few will argue with that assessment.

The 22-year-old is clearly far stronger than his Ineos teammate Thomas, Alaphilippe’s heroic effort seems to have finally run out of gas and neither Kruijswijk nor Buchmann has shown the potency to take back time on Bernal.

It was unfortunate that the stage had to be truncated but few could argue the best rider is not in the lead and it is hard to think how this extraordinary situation could have been dealt with any more effectively.

The final act in this astonishing drama was set to be a 130km stage featuring a number of significant climbs, but two of those climbs will now be skipped because of those landslides and the stage has been cut to just 59km.

The peloton will go straight from Albertville to the final 33km ascent to Val Thorens and the riders will not have to tackle the category two Cote de Longefoy or the category one Cormet de Roselend, a 19.9km ascent a tsix per cent.

As far as the yellow jersey goes, it will require Bernal to suffer illness, a crash or a drastic and sudden loss of form if he is to be denied, and this could be the first of many Tour triumphs for the young Colombian.

Because he does not need to attack, and because Thomas will not take him on and his other three rivals appear incapable of putting significant time into him, he will not be concerned with taking the stage win, so a breakaway triumph is likely.

Simon Yates gets the vote to win his third stage of this year’s Tour, a result of him being able to pick and choose which days he wants to compete and which days he wants to rest on while the big guns continue their relentless pursuit of yellow.

He was riding a big race yesterday and has the talent and the freshness to make what should initially be a large group that goes clear before proving the last man standing at Val Thorens.

But after three weeks of scarcely believable happenings only the bold will be making any assumptions about what will happen today, especially as some weather forecasts are predicting more freakishly heavy rainfall for the Val Thorens area this afternoon.

Recommendation
S Yates
2pts 10-3 Betway

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