A reckoning on Mont Ventoux
There will be plenty of cheering from the fans during Tuesday's Tour de France mountain stage. Picture:Mont Ventoux, the most feared mountain in cycling, is the destination of Stage 16 of the Tour de France on Tuesday.
The finishing stretch is so steep only a handful the very best climbers stand any chance of winning the stage – which means Tadej Pogacar is hot favourite again, this time at 1.44.
Pogacar has already won four stages of this year's Tour and looks invincible on any sort of uphill.
The only man to get anywhere near challenging the mighty Slovenian, Dane Jonas Vingegaard, is at 7.00 for the Win. Third on the board is Germany's youthful Florian Lipowitz at 21.00.
Outside of the stage win, plenty of other wagering options are available – on both the stage and overall results. Betway has made a number of matchups between pairs of competitors, for example, allowing a bet on one or the other to finish first.
Known at 'The Beast of Provence' or 'The Bald Mountain', the rocky colossus has delivered drama on the 18 times the Tour de France has ventured onto its slopes – most tragically in 1967 when British cyclist Tom Simpson collapsed and died as he strove to be the first to summit.
More recently, four-time Tour winner Chris Froome's bike punctured and he couldn't find a quick replacement so had to run part of the way up. In 2021, Wout van Aert established his legend by leading the way over the top before going on to win solo in Malaucène.
Pogacar looks home and hosed in the Tour overall, with a price of 1.04! But cycling is dangerous and unpredictable, with calamity always lurking.
Also, opposition teams will be furiously plotting against Pogacar and his UAE Team Emirates. Vingegaard's Visma Lease A Bike is a potent outfit with better climbing talent than UAE as the Tour enters the Alps in its final week.
If Pogacar or Vingegaard falter on Ventoux, any one of latter's climbing helpers – Matteo Jorgenson, Sepp Kuss or Simon Yates – could pounce. All three of those riders are at 51.00 for the stage and might be worth a tickle.
All Betway odds correct at publishing and subject to change.
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