Tour de France heads to the mountains with Froome in yellow

Miles Crosby | July 19, 2015

Normally, the first week of the Tour de France is a quiet affair for the yellow jersey hopefuls; not so this year. There hasn’t even been a major mountain stage so far, and yet the overall lead has changed hand five times and race favourite Chris Froome (4/7 to win the Tour with Coral) is already over a minute ahead of his main rivals.

After the surprise victory of Australian Rohan Dennis over German Tony Martin in stage one, the drama really started on stage two. What should have been an uneventful and flat ride across the Netherlands turned into chaos as strong winds split the peloton and left big gaps between finishers, of which Froome was a beneficiary. This was followed by major crashes on stage three which put the race leader Fabian Cancellara out of the race, while Froome gained more time.

On the cobbled roads of stage four, Martin won an impressive victory and took the yellow jersey he was denied on the first day. He lost it just two days later when he fractured his collarbone on stage six and had to abandoned the race.

Mark Cavendish finally won a stage on day seven, although at this point he is a long way behind Slovakian Peter Sagan in the green jersey competition. Sagan remains the favourite in this contest at 2/9, but German Andre ‘the Gorilla’ Greipel has looked very strong and has moved into second in odds at 7/2.

So, at the end of the first eight days of the Tour, Froome looks to be in an excellent position. Chief rival Alberto Contador (9/1 Tour chance) is already 1’03” down, with Nairo Quintana (3/1) 1’59” and Vincenzo Nibali (22/1) 2’22” behind. The other riders will now be forced to attack Froome in the mountains to have any chance of victory in the Tour.