Trio of big-priced contenders to light up this summer's sporting tour de force

Sporting summers in years ending in an odd number can be significantly duller than those featuring Olympic Games, World Cups and European Championships, but this is a cracker, and it is about to get even better.

The women’s World Cup has been superb, despite the increasing menace of the thing this column has promised to no longer talk about, and while most people have grown out of having the urge to discuss whether women should actually be playing football, for those remaining dinosaurs who refuse to acknowledge the excellence of the female version of the game it is worth making a couple of points.

First, there is a clear parallel with women’s tennis in that its lack of raw power compared to the men’s game enables pure skill, guile and fluidity to shine through in a way that makes it so appealing to watch.

And second, the comparative absence of cheating, moaning, diving and general dark arts is utterly refreshing.

Meanwhile, the Cricket World Cup has been a consistently captivating way to fill a couple of idle hours or even a full day. Its revamped format, featuring one league without the minnows that have elongated it so pointlessly in past years, is a vast improvement, although they have missed a trick by failing to give the choice of whether to bat or bowl first to the teams who finished highest when it comes to the semis and the final.

But as we move into July the event that helps keep the pangs for the start of the new football season to a minimum is the Tour de France, which has been hideously tarnished by widespread doping but remains the best annual competition that involves neither a ball nor a four-legged animal.

And this year’s edition has the added bonus of being possibly the most interesting betting puzzle to solve in decades.

Because of what the likes of Lance Armstrong did with syringes and prohibited substances it is no longer possible to heap praise on individual performances, which is a massive shame, but it remains an intriguing event taking place in the most beautiful surroundings, and even if you don’t know who is clean and who is cheating it is still an incredible challenge to cover 2,150 miles in three weeks, including some of Europe’s most mountainous roads.

This year, with Chris Froome having cycled into a wall at 30mph while trying to blow his nose, and Tom Dumoulin having suffered a less spectacular injury, there is an enthrallingly open feel to the field, and what looks to me like a market that is brimming with poor value at the top of it.

To summarise the front six in a nutshell: Egan Bernal, the favourite, is young, unproven and too skinny, Geraint Thomas is in nothing like the form he was going into last year’s triumphant Tour, Jacob Fuglsang is way too short for a veteran with such a sketchy grand tour record, Richie Porte and Nairo Quintana have had their chances, and Adam Yates just doesn’t strike me as being good enough.

All of which opens up the possibility of a juicy-priced winner, and while you could, almost uniquely for the Tour, have ten picks and still not come close to picking the winner, my three against the field will hopefully fill at least one podium place between them.

First up is Romain Bardet, a nearly-man who will benefit from the absence of any genuine titans of the Tour as well as the absence of anything resembling a long time trial. This fearless descender can go close to giving France its first victory in the race since Bernard Hinault in 1985.

Emanuel Buchmann could be the breakthrough act of 2019. The progressive German has shown strong form at high altitude this year and looks big at 66-1.

Finally, a chance is taken with Julian Alaphilippe, the most talented all-rounder in the line-up but regarded by virtually everyone as being an inadequate climber for this kind of test. I suspect this is not the case, especially as he won the king of the mountains title last year, although the problem is he himself might not even realise he has the tools to win a Tour, especially one as open as this.

What I am hoping will happen is that he will secure the yellow jersey in the early stages, which play to his strengths, leaving him in a position where he feels obliged to defend it, in which case he may well keep his lead deep into the final week and quite possibly all the way to Paris.

There is a chance he will instead aim for the mountains jersey again, as everyone expects, but at 150-1 and upwards it is worth a bet that he ends the host nation’s long wait.

It is hard to know who will end up winning the 2019 edition but it is hard to believe it will not be a magical mystery tour full of surprises. I cannot wait.

Multiple reasons why bookmakers' actions were justified

Debate still rumbles on over the decision by bet365 and Sky Bet not to offer the full range of multiples on Frankie Dettori’s rides on the Friday of Royal Ascot, the day after he had threatened to go through the card again.

The companies were lambasted by various people, including other bookmakers, yet it seemed fairly obvious and justifiable why they acted as they did.

I am told Dettori would have cost the industry in the region of half a billion pounds had he won all six races on the Thursday (and the consequences for the levy and therefore prize-money would have been pretty frightening), so it is not hard to imagine even more spectacular liabilities would have been racked up by an enormous number of accumulators being placed the following day as punters chased a lottery-size win.

For bet365 and Sky Bet that would have meant they were on the hook for sums that would have dwarfed Thursday’s, to the extent that they would potentially have had difficulty paying up should the near-impossible have actually happened.

Critics can harp on about lightning not striking twice, but by accepting accumulators on Frankie’s five Friday rides both firms would effectively have been placing bets running into hundreds of millions of pounds on Dettori not winning every race in which he was competing.

That would have been reckless and indeed potentially of interest to the Gambling Commission. It was a one-off situation that was dealt with in a sensible manner, albeit the communication of the message could have been slightly swifter and clearer.

ITV Racing had an excellent Royal Ascot but if they did put one foot wrong it was in during the exhilarating moment after Dettori had made it four wins from four.

The channel have been far more sparing than Channel 4 were when it comes to using bookmakers’ PR representatives on air, but this was an occasion when it would have been insightful for them to have grabbed two or three of them and asked for some insight into the exact size of the liability.

Limit to the resilience of those in the firing line

Racing's star of the week is Roderick Duncan, the clerk of the course at Doncaster, who bravely and candidly spoke to the Racing Post about the breakdown he suffered last year, which was caused by the pressure of his role.

A factor in the stress he underwent was the scrutiny and criticism he received from various people, and it was telling that he referenced “the vast amount of emails we got from trainers kicking off”.

This struck a chord. My time as editor was regularly punctuated with trainers venting their displeasure at the Racing Post for a variety of things.

Some were valid but more were irrational, unfair and unjustified, and I often wondered what life must be like in yards in which the person in charge has such a monumentally short fuse.

It is taken for granted that “bollockings” are part and parcel of working in a racing stable, but that shouldn’t be the case, and nor should trainers feel they can tee off on anyone outside their premises who triggers their disapproval in any way at all.

I have had many positive dealings with many extremely nice trainers, but I have also had far too many moments when I have been left shaking my head at how anyone can lose their temper so volcanically with so little cause.

Running a training establishment must carry huge pressure, but that does not make it a unique profession, and it would be helpful if some of the more volatile trainers could learn to count to ten before erupting because, as Duncan showed this week, those on the receiving end of rants have a limit to their resilience.

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