Tour de France 2022

Stage 1 – Copenhague > Copenhague ITT (13.2km)

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The 2022 Tour de France starts with a Grand Départ from Copenhagen. This individual time trial is the first of three stages in Denmark before a transfer day and then restart in Dunkirk on Tuesday.

At just over 13km, this is a short effort of around 15mins around a street circuit that is quite technical. There are a lot of 90-degree bends – about 17 give or take – which will make it difficult for the time trial specialists to get up to top speed.

The weather forecast is for possible showers which could have a big influence on the stage result. Let’s hope it stays dry and everyone gets around safely.

Stage 1 Contenders

The favourite for stage 1 of the Tour de France at a best price of 5/4 is Ineos Grenadiers’ Filippo Ganna. He’s won the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia the last two years and is double world champion. Basically, when he has a big target, he tends to deliver.  

What’s more, Ineos have unleashed a new Pinarello time trial bike for the occasion which Ganna used when winning the Italian championship last week. The potential gains on the new tech were perhaps more clearly seen at the Tour de Suisse where both Geraint Thomas and Dani Martínez posted impressive times. 

The course isn’t ideal for him – longer and straighter would be better – but it probably won’t matter.

The only rider to have beaten Ganna in a time trial this season is EF Education-Easypost’s Stefan Bissegger. That was at the UAE Tour back in February so I’m not sure how much we can read into that. The young Swiss is a best price 11/4 for this. In the negative column, Bissegger was one of the many who had to leave the Tour de Suisse due to a Covid positive. Even if he doesn’t get his nose in front here, we’re likely to see him challenging for wins on hilly, breakaway stages.

Jumbo-Visma superstar all-rounder Wout van Aert has had a disrupted preparation after banging his knee on his handlebars in training. He didn’t sound very confident about his chances during Wednesday’s press conference, revealing that: “Everything related to pedalling is not good”. That might be an exaggeration, or even misdirection, but it’s still not ideal heading into the opening stage. Nor is the loss of their main directeur sportif, Merijn Zeeman, to Covid.

At the Critérium de Dauphiné a few weeks ago, Van Aert pushed Ganna very close, losing by only 2secs on a course and distance that suited Ganna more. On paper, this is better for the Belgian – his explosivity and excellent bike handling skills should help him around here.

Without the knee injury – and we don’t really know how bad it was and is – Van Aert would’ve been vying for favouritism. As it is, he’s been squeezed out to 11/4. That might be value but probably best left for this one.

Apart from some social media clips of him screaming around on his mountain bike, we haven’t seen Mathieu van der Poel since he lit up the Giro d’Italia in May, so we can’t be sure what kind of shape he’s in. As with Van Aert, this short course plays to his cyclo-cross strengths and may allow him to compete with the specialists.

Van der Poel probably would’ve won the time trial on stage 2 of the Giro (he lost out to Simon Yates by 3secs) had he been wearing his own skinsuit rather than the one supplied by the organisers due to him leading the race. This time Van der Poel will be wearing the same brand of time trial skinsuit that propelled Yates – and his BikeExchange-Jayco teammate Matteo Sobrero – to time trial victory in Italy. That’s got to be worth a few extra seconds.

Van der Poel is available at 14/1 (there’s 27.0 currently available on the exchanges but due to the transient nature of those prices, I’ll only ever put up sportsbook prices on bet selections). It’s a tough ask for him to beat the best time trial riders in the world but, given the factors in his favour, is worth a small play to win stage 1.

Groupama-FDJ’s Stefan Küng is the current European time trial champion. He’s really stepped up a level the last couple of years, especially with his climbing. He finished fifth overall in his home Tour de Suisse a few weeks ago – impressive given his size and the terrain they went over. Küng has to be considered one of the contenders for stage 1 and is available at around 12/1. Like Ganna, he’s not suited by the tight course, and like Bissegger, is another recovering from Covid.

The best chance of a home win probably comes from Trek-Segafredo’s Mads Pedersen. Wearing the yellow jersey during these early stages is a big goal for Pedersen. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be after Friday’s opening stage. Stages 2 and 3 could turn into tough days if the wind blows which would allow Pedersen to compete with the faster sprinters and potentially pick up time bonuses on the line. So his aim here, if he can’t win the time trial, will be to keep himself within shooting distance of the leaders.

Denmark have several other chances of victory – Kasper Asgreen, Mikkel Bjerg and Jonas Vingegaard are all lively outsiders. But the best value appears to be Magnus Cort at 200/1. He’s produced several excellent time trial results in the past and came within 7secs of winning the Danish national title last week, albeit on a much longer course. A top 10 is the most likely, but who knows? With the home crowd cheering him on, he might just sneak a place and is worth a (very) small interest at big odds.

The main goal for the GC players will be to stay safe and finish there or thereabouts. So, despite Tadej Pogačar, Primož Roglič and Geraint Thomas all being very accomplished time trial riders, it would be a surprise to see any of them winning.

As with any Grand Tour, betting profit (or loss) will be determined a lot deeper into the race – on breakaway stages where the staking plan is increased. For now, let’s see how everyone is going.

Stage 1 Bets

1pt win Mathieu van der Poel @14/1

0.25pts each way (3 places) Magnus Cort @200/1

Posted 0922 BST Thu 30th June 2022

Prices correct at the time of writing but are subject to change - find the best prices available on the Tour de France at Oddschecker