Tour de France Betting: Polka-Dot Jersey Preview

Tour De France / Tobias Gourlay / 03 July 2009 / Leave a Comment

The Tour de France needs clean winners as much as any opponent of Roger Federer. Tobias Gourlay hopes there might be one in this year's King of the Mountains competition.

The garish polka-dot jersey of the King of the Mountains has been tarnished more than any other by the drug scandals of the last 15 years or so. The reputation of Richard Virenque, who won it seven times, was irreparably sullied by his involvement in the Festina affair of 1998. Michael Rasmussen won it twice after Virenque, but disappeared under a cloud while wearing the yellow jersey in the 2007 Tour. Last year, Bernhard Kohl was disgraced by a positive test for CERA three months after climbing atop the podium in Paris.

The 2007 winner, Mauricio Soler, will not start this year's Tour because his team, Barloworld, has been excluded, which means there are no previous Kings of the Mountains in the peloton.

Since Rasmussen and Virenque, who both treasured the polka-dot jersey in its own right, success in this category has become closely associated with success in the General Classification (GC). That's why the best climbers among the serious GC contenders - Alberto Contador ([14]), Frank Schleck ([20]) and Carlos Sastre ([25]) - start among the favourites in this market too. While one of the big names is likely to be first over the top of the really tough mountains, yellow-jersey chasers are not prepared to expend energy accumulating intermediate points on smaller climbs.

Neither are their domestiques allowed to chase individual glory in such situations, which is why talented mountain goats like Chris Sorensen ([25]), a team-mate of the Schlecks, and Robert Gesink ([14.5]), who rides with Denis Menchov, are as long as they are.

Who's left? Well, there are the French riders, whose determination to impress their home crowds spurs them on to take the King of the Mountains very seriously. Cofidis's David Moncoutie, who won the mountains title at last year's Vuelta a Espana, is the firm favourite at [3.6]. A believer in the efficacy of homeopathy, he has often been troubled by injury, but appears to be fully fit this time.

Other local favourites include Quickstep's Sylvain Chavanel ([16]), the most combative rider of last year's Tour and also a stage-winner, 38-year-old Christophe Moreau ([13]), a veteran of the Festina scandal who quit in 2008 after only seven stages, and another 2008 stage-winner, Ag2r's Cyril Dessel ([40]).

This market is probably best grappled with in-play, when the instructions and motivations of the various contenders become clearer. Throughout Le Tour, there will be a daily column on this website that will keep a close eye on the race to become King of the Mountains.