The 2018 Tour de France starts soon and rosters are being finalized, which means it’s the perfect for some bold (but educated) predictions regarding this year’s race. Here’s how we see this year’s race playing out.

1. Marcel Kittel, winner of five stages last year, will go winless this year.

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Marcel Kittel won five stages for Quick-Step during last year’s Tour and was on his way to winning the green jersey before crashing-out of the race during the Tour’s final week. But his contract expired at the end of the season, and the German signed with Katusha-Alpecin. The move made sense: Alpecin is a German shampoo company, and the team was more than happy to pay for the services of the well-coiffed rider sprinter.

But the first half of Kittel’s season has not been a successful one. Kittel and his lead-out train have been slow to gel (no pun intended), and the German heads to the Tour with only two wins so far, both of which came way back in early-March.

And things aren’t looking-up: Katusha hasn’t won a stage at the Tour de France since 2014 and also brings a GC contender to this year’s race in Ilnur Zakarin. Kittel is used to racing on teams with a well-organized supporting cast of riders and staff. He’ll find Tour stage wins much harder to come by at his new home.

Degree of Certainty: 40%

2. Bora-Hansgrohe’s Peter Sagan will come close, but Quick-Step’s Fernando Gaviria will win the green jersey.

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After being unfairly DQed from the 2017 Tour de France, Peter Sagan will make it to Paris in 2018—and probably win a stage or two along the way. But the Slovak will finally meet his green jersey match in Colombian Fernando Gaviria. Gaviria won four stages and the Points Classification at last year’s Giro d’Italia for Quick-Step and looks set to try and duplicate that performance at the 2018 Tour de France. An incredible talent who seems to possess the best qualities of a pure sprinter like Kittel and a hybrid sprinter like Sagan, Gaviria will score points in flat, uphill, and technical sprints. If Gaviria dominates this year’s Tour de France the way he did last year’s Tour of Italy, Sagan might be denied a record-tying sixth green jersey—again.



Degree of Certainty: 60%

3. The Tour’s best Colombian climber will be riding for Team Sky.

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The Colombian Tour Renaissance began in 2013, when Nairo Quintana’s debut set the race on fire with an electrifying mountain performance. By the end of the race, Quintana had won a mountain stage, the Best Young Rider classification, the King of the Mountains competition, and finished second overall.

This year, another new Colombian face will fly up the Tour’s mountains, one even younger than Quintana was when he raced his first Tour in 2013. His name is Egan Bernal, and he rides for Team Sky. Recognizing his incredible potential after a string of high finishes last season, Sky bought the 21-year-old’s contract from a second division Italian team this past off-season. They had not planned to bring him to the Tour this year, but after an incredible start to his first season in the World Tour (including two stages and the overall title at May’s Tour of California), Sky can’t afford to leave him at home. He’ll start the race as one of Chris Froome’s key mountain domestiques, but by the time it’s all said and done, will be the Tour’s biggest revelation.

Degree of Certainty: 70%

4. Movistar’s highest finisher won’t be Quintana, Mikel Landa, or Alejandro Valverde.

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Movistar has announced that it’s coming to the Tour with three, yes, three co-leaders in Nairo Quintana, Alejandro Valverde, and Mikel Landa. While this might sound like a good idea, it’s a situation that could quickly turn into a made-for-TV movie produced by Jerry Springer.

Frankly, we think the worst can and will happen, with at least one rider not making it through the Tour’s first week and the other two (especially if one them is Landa) effectively canceling out one another’s chances. If that happens, expect 24-year-old Marc Soler to emerge as the team’s best rider.

In March, Soler won Paris-Nice, a prestigious week-long stage race that often serves as a proving ground for future Tour contenders. A few weeks later, he spent much of Paris-Roubaix in the breakaway. He can climb, time trial, and isn’t afraid of cobblestones, all of which make him the perfect Plan D for Movistar. If (or when) Plans A, B, and C falter, mark him down for a high placing in Paris and the white jersey as the Tour’s Best Young Rider.



Degree of Certainty: 30%

5. A former ski jumping Slovenian will finish on the podium.

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Primož Roglič won the Junior World Ski Jumping championship in 2007 and represented his country at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. But he switched to cycling in 2012, went pro soon after, and last year found himself riding his first Tour de France, where he won Stage 17 in the Alps.

Clearly a talented climber, Roglič is also a gifted time trialist who won a 40km ITT at the 2016 Tour of Italy and finished a second in last year’s world championships. Now he heads back to the Tour hunting for a high GC finish after winning rides at two of the season’s toughest and most prestigious week-long stage races: the Tour of the Basque Country and the Tour of Romandie. Roglic parlayed his skills as a both a climber and time trialist to win both events, and should do the same at the Tour. Watch the all-rounder use the penultimate day’s hilly time trial (in the French Basque Country, no less) to ride himself onto the podium.

Degree of Certainty: 50%

6. Cavendish will end the Tour one stage short of tying Eddy Merckx.

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After getting his career back on track by winning four stages in the 2016 Tour de France, Mark Cavendish’s career went into a bit of tailspin with the Manxman recording more crashes than wins since his epic 2016 performance. Indeed, the last two years have left many wondering wondering whether this is the beginning of the end of Cav’s best years. But that’s what we said at this time in 2016, and Cavendish, who clearly enjoys silencing his critics, responded with one of his finest Tours ever. Cav needs another four stages to tie all-time great Eddy Merckx for the most stage wins in Tour history, and despite another rough start to his season, Cavendish has finished the last three stage races he’s entered.

While he hasn’t won since February, his form is coming along, and the Tour’s late start this year gives him an extra week of training. With a strong Dimension Data team supporting him that has little else to ride for other than breakaway stage wins, Cav will win three stages, ending the Tour one shy of Merckx’s record.



Degree of Certainty: 25%

7. A Briton will win the Tour, but it won’t be Chris Froome.

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Everyone is talking about the strength of Team Sky and Movistar. And for good reason: the British and Spanish teams probably have the strongest eight-man rosters in the Tour. But don’t sleep on Mitchelton-Scott.



Formerly known as Orica-Greenedge, the Australian team has slowly been developing a solid group of GC contenders, with a solid squad of capable and experienced riders to support them. For example, Great Britain’s Simon Yates came a few days short of winning the Tour of Italy in May, thanks to aggressive tactics, strong climbing, and a better-than-average time trial. At the Tour, leadership responsibilities fall on his brother Adam, who finished fourth overall and won the white jersey as the Tour’s Best Young Rider in 2016 and recently finished second overall at the Criterium du Dauphiné.

With Yates as the team’s sole GC option and a team an even stronger group riders around him, Yates has everything he needs to succeed—including lessons learned from his brother’s Giro defeat. Expect the formula to go something like this: the team finishes not far off the lead on Stage 3’s team time trial, and Yates gains time thanks to a stage win and time bonuses on the punchy stages through Brittany.

Then former Paris-Roubaix winner Mathew Hayman keeps him at the front of the race over the pavé of Stage 9, delivering Yates to the mountains—where he really shines—in prime position to fight for the yellow jersey. And while he’s not the strongest time trialist, Stage 20’s ITT is hilly and technical, which means Yates will have an easier time of staying near the top of the leaderboard to take the biggest of his—and his team’s—career.

Degree of Certainty: 50%

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