Tour de France Betting: Stage Four

Tour De France / Tobias Gourlay / 07 July 2009 / 1

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Lance is up to third. Astana are favourites for today's Team Time-Trial. Will the great man be in yellow this evening, wonders Tobias Gourlay

After two days of sprint finishes and a three-year absence, the Team Time-Trial (TTT) returns to the Tour de France. Just like the first ever TTT stage, this one finishes in Montpellier. The 38km course is a hard one that is technically demanding to start and then includes some steep up-and-downs. Only on the relative flat of the last 12 or so kilometres will the stronger teams be able to move into top gear, so time gaps between them are likely to be quite small. With a 33-second lead over the rest, there's perhaps a touch of value about [1.78] for Fabian Cancellara to retain the yellow jersey for at least one more day.

Wind will continue to be an issue while the Tour is so close to the coast, and it was an important factor yesterday, when there was a 41-second split in the peloton. Because Lance Armstrong was on the right side of it, unlike any of his rivals, he has overtaken his team-mate Alberto Contador and would take the yellow jersey if Astana - the [1.79] favourites to win today's stage - can take another 41 seconds out of Fabian Cancellara's Saxo Bank ([9.4]) and hold off Tony Martin's Team Columbia ([7.6]) and Bradley Wiggins's Garmin ([4.6]).

Columbia, winners of the Giro d'Italia TTT this year, are very well drilled and have previewed today's course seven times, but their great efforts in organising Mark Cavendish's stage wins of the last couple of days are against them. They will be pleased, however, that most of their rivals expended extra energy trying to close yesterday's split. Garmin too have focused specifically on this stage, working relentlessly on formation and changeovers in the last few weeks.

After overtaking Contador yesterday, Armstrong said, "I am not okay with that theory saying there can be only one team leader. I have won seven Tours de France - I will have to be counted in." Astana have some terrific individual time-trialists and, although their riders have the same objective today, it is not clear they have the team unity of Garmin and, in particular, Columbia. They might be worth a small lay.

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VoteTheDay | 07 July 2009

Contador or Armstrong? Now it is up to you to decide which one of them will win this year - https://www.votetheday.com/tour-de-france/tour-de-france-winner-425/