Tour de France: Stage Five predictions and free tips

Free cycling tips, best bet and analysis for Stage Five of the Tour de France on Wednesday.

Where to watch

ITV4 & Eurosport 1, from midday Wednesday

Best bet

Caleb Ewan to win stage five
1pt 7-4 bet365

Preview

Primoz Roglic justified his status as favourite for this year's Tour de France with a brilliant victory on Stage Four to Orcieres-Merlette.

A recent crash at the Criterium du Dauphine prompted doubts about his condition, but the Slovenian and his Team Jumbo-Visma colleagues showed exactly why they are fancied on the earliest Alpine finish in the race's history.

Both Wout van Aert and Sepp Kuss set a punishing pace at the front of the peloton and while Cofidis' Guillaume Martin tried a late burst, Roglic eased past him to take the win.

Compatriot Tadej Pogacar of Team UAE Emirates took second with Martin third. Roglic picked up a ten-second time bonus for his victory and sits third on the general classification, just seven seconds behind yellow-jersey wearer Julian Alaphilippe.

Stage Five lends itself to the sprinters, with the majority of the parcours downhill, save for a couple of category-four climbs and then an 8km drag to the finish.

That opens up the possibility that a rouleur may aim to make a late assault. However, with this year's dearth of sprint stages, the quick men will be urging their lead-outs to put them in position and after winning an uphill finish on Monday, Lotto-Soudal's Caleb Ewan has to be the favourite.

Ewan and Deceuninck-Quick-Step's Sam Bennett look a class apart from their rivals but the Australian's dash to victory in Sisteron, in which he carved through his rivals, suggests he has the edge.

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