Tour De France / Tobias Gourlay / 03 July 2011 /

Alberto Contador and Mark Cavendish are serial Tour de France winners. Plus ça change, says Tobias Gourlay

Five seconds separated the top five teams in yesterday's time trial. Sky, our [12.0] pick, were fastest through the first checkpoint, giving us a chance to lay off them for profit, and finished third, exceeding the expectations of a market that made them [2.9] for a top-three finish.

Alberto Contador's Saxo Bank were eighth, 28 seconds back. That is roughly what the market expected of them and the Spaniard's overall win price has not moved much from yesterday. A trip to the Court of Arbitration for Sport awaits him next month, but he won't take his eyes off the prize of a seventh consecutive grand tour. Not least because his team manager, Bjarne Riis, would not allow it. Now is the time to back him.

The third stage of this year's Tour is the first one for the sprinters. For 'sprinters', read 'Mark Cavendish'. The Manx Missile is the [1.9] favourite to win today.

Cavendish is naturally fast - probably because he has lots of fast-twitch fibres in his muscle make-up - and naturally ambitious. He has won 15 Tour stages in the last three years and, if he keeps winning five a year, then he will pass Eddy Merckx's all-time record of 34 wins on the Champs-Elysees in 2014.

Sea winds might split the peloton into echelons before the sprint finish, but Cavendish will be well protected by his HTC team mates. He has been jumped by some of his rivals in the very early stages of previous Tours - his first wins in 2008 and 2010 were not until stage five - but that has happened already this year - in Saturday's intermediate sprint - and, after a crash ruined his "freestyling" assault on stage one, his motivation is total.

Best Bet: Back Mark Cavendish @ [1.90] to be Stage Winner
Recommended Bet: Back Alberto Contador @ [2.66] to be Tour de France 2011 Winner

You can now follow Tobias on Twitter: @tobiasgourlay

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