Tour de France 2022

Stage 19 – Castelnau-Magnoac > Cahors (188.3km)

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Stage 18 Result

1st Jonas Vingegaard (3/1)

2nd Tadej Pogačar (9/4F)

3rd Wout van Aert (150/1)

4th Geraint Thomas (33/1)

Stage 18 Bets

2pts win Jonas Vingegaard @3/1 – 1st

1pt win Nick Schultz @12/1

1pt win Alexey Lutsenko @16/1 – 6th

0.5pts each way (3 places) Bob Jungels @66/1

0.5pts each way (3 places) Carlos Verona @70/1

Fantastic battle between two great riders, but it was Vingegaard – with the help of a ridiculous performance by Van Aert – who put this Tour to bed, taking another minute out of Pogačar. All of the other picks made the breakaway with Lutsenko coming out best in 6th but, as on stage 17, didn’t stand a chance against the GC chase behind.

Total Stakes: 93.0pts; Profit/Loss: +14.9pts (+16.0%)

Stage 19 Preview

The mountains are done and before a time trial on Saturday and the Champs-Élysées sprint on Sunday, we have a flat stage with a couple of short, categorised climbs near the end. This race has been ridden at a brutal pace and many riders will be on their knees which means a bunch sprint isn’t guaranteed.

Realistically, this is the last chance for many teams to get something out of the race and so there will be interest in forming a breakaway too strong to control. The final itself is relatively straightforward – there’s a left turn at a roundabout near the flamme rouge before an uphill drag to the line, favouring the stronger sprinters.

Stage 19 Contenders

Due to depleted teams and tired legs, it’s quite common for a flat stage in the last week of a Grand Tour to be taken by a breakaway. And there are reasons to believe we could see similar here. The parcours is not pure-sprinter friendly. We’ve got the two lumps in the last 50km where some of the fast men could get dropped as well as a significant uphill run past the kilometre marker of around 3.5%. This will discourage some teams from working and may put a bunch sprint in jeopardy.

There are others, however, for whom this stage looks perfect. Alpecin-Deceuninck and Jasper Philipsen finally got their win on stage 15 and will benefit from those short climbs deadening the legs of the purer sprinters. Philipsen has been installed as the favourite at 11/4.

Similarly, Trek-Segafredo will be looking to put the hammer down as they did on the finish to Carcassonne to try to drop some fast men and set up Mads Pedersen for the sprint. It’s his best shot at winning as others are quicker in a straight fight and has been put up at a decent 9/1. However, he’s likely to find one or two faster.

Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl’s Fabio Jakobsen is the most vulnerable to being dropped. He’s the fastest man on paper but clearly exhausted as we saw in the emotional video of him making the time cut by just 16secs on stage 17. Paris is his goal and a win on the Champs-Élysées, so Quick-Step may opt to put someone like Florian Sénéchal or Mikkel Honoré in the break. Although Honoré was seen grabbing a cold beer at the bottom of the Hautacam, so maybe not.

BikeExchange-Jayco have had a decent Tour with stage wins from Dylan Groenewegen and Michael Matthews (plus a very near miss from Nick Schultz) and both could be players here. As it’s unclear whether Groenewegen will get over the climbs, they could try to put Matthews in the break to remove responsibility for the chase and have the Dutchman for the sprint should it come back together. They also have the option of Luka Mezgec who has a habit of coming good in the final week of the Tour (2nd on stage 19 in 2020, 4th on stage 21 in 2021).

Caleb Ewan is still in the race which didn’t look likely after banging up his knee on stage 13. Like Jakobsen, his motivation for staying the distance is the sprint in Paris, but if he’s recovered well enough then this is a good stage for the Aussie. The short, punchy climbs should be no bother and then the slight drag in the sprint are perfect.

His finishing positions in the mountain stages – several minutes ahead of the struggling Jakobsen – suggest he’s doing ok. If Lotto-Soudal police the break and start riding on the front, then Ewan is up for it. The 8/1 about him will look big should he get his arms in the air.

Of course we have to also include Jumbo-Visma’s Wout van Aert. What an unbelievable performance he put in on stage 18. We assume he has to tire at some point, but remember he won both the time trial on stage 20 and the Paris sprint on stage 21 last year. He’s around 5/1 to win this and it wouldn’t at all be a surprise.  

Another team who might ride are TotalEnergies for Peter Sagan who’s been solid if not spectacular this Tour (four times in the top 6) though of course has pretty high standards to live up to. But another of their riders has been slowly riding into some good form.

Mathieu Burgaudeau won a stage of Paris-Nice from a breakaway earlier this season and was in decent nick before a heavy crash in the French nationals followed by a couple more in the opening weekend in Denmark. Yes, a hillier parcours is more up his street and yes, he’ll probably be in the services of Sagan, but at 500/1 is worth a small fun interest. Hopefully, he’ll get in the break and stay upright.

So Philipsen for a bunch sprint win and a couple of huge-priced wildcards for a break or reduced sprint.

Stage 19 Bets

2pts win Jasper Philipsen @11/4

0.25pts each way (3 places) Luka Mezgec @400/1

0.25pts each way (3 places) Mathieu Burgaudeau @500/1

Posted 2017 BST Thu 21st July 2022

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