Cyclist
Who are the favourites for the men’s Tour de France 2024?
The Tour de France is back, thank god. With the return of the Tour comes predictions, speculation, rumour and guessing games of who will win the 2024 Tour de France. But why stab in the dark? Whether you go by consensus or bookmakers, there are clear favourites to win the famous yellow jersey and clear contenders to either challenge for that final podium spot or take their chance if the top two don’t make it to Paris.
Riders are desperately searching for underdog status ahead of this year’s Tour de France. A crash-marred spring and unfavourable preparations have meant that many riders are starting the Tour de France on disagreeable terms. With only a couple of days to go until the race starts in Florence, the clock is ticking for the favourites to get their act together ahead of the big send-off in Tuscany.
By merging bookmakers’ consensus and GC record, we’ve considered every genuine contender who could feasibly win the general classification in the men’s Tour de France 2024 and assessed their chances. Consider it a stab in the light. Our own predictions will follow later this week.
Tour de France 2024 favourites
Barring incident, the yellow jersey will be worn by one of two men in Nice. You know them well after watching them clash over the past three Tours.
Jonas Vingegaard
Jonas Vingegaard has a lot to prove at this year’s Tour de France. After a serious crash at Itzulia Basque Country this spring, the two-time Tour champion has had a far from ideal build-up to his defence. Now even with Pogačar on two Tour wins apiece, Vingegaard will be hungry to prove that he is the best Tour de France rider of the 2020s.
In 2023, Vingegaard looked unstoppable. A pragmatic Tour de France crescendoed in the Alps with a monstrous time-trial victory on Stage 16 in Combloux. He laid the final nails in the coffin of Pogačar’s chances on the Col de la Loze where he extended his lead by almost seven minutes. In Tour terms, it was seismic. If it weren’t for that crash in the spring, Vingegaard would be the out-and-out favourite.
The Visma-Lease a Bike squad looks strong. Paris-Nice winner Matteo Jorgenson will be backed up in the mountain train by 2020 Giro podium finisher Wilco Kelderman and Slovenian Jan Tratnik. Wout van Aert returns from injury to prop up this team alongside Christophe Laporte on the hilly profiles. The only slight issue is Sepp Kuss’s late removal from the squad due to illness, he’s replaced by Bart Lemmen.
The Dane’s recent crashes will cloud all speculation, but he has been training again and seems fit enough to race. In due course, we will see the return of the ruthless Vingegaard.
Rating: 5/5
Tadej Pogačar
The bookies’ favourite is Tadej Pogačar. This is for good reason, he is the best cyclist around at the moment. The Slovenian has previously won two Tours de France and already has a Grand Tour under his belt this year. He looks untouchable on the climbs and his squad is packed full of talent.
Pogačar was in imperious form earlier this season with Classics wins at Strade Bianche and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. He took this form into the Giro d’Italia where he clinched six stage wins and the overall classification. It looked like the best Pogačar we’ve seen to date, but without a top-tier favourite to compete against, it was hard to know if he was Tour-level competitive.
Much of the discourse last year was clouded by Pogačar’s wrist injury. There was also plenty of talk about him learning from his mistakes after being outplayed by Jumbo-Visma in 2022. What we saw last year was a man burnt out by the final week and Vingegaard saw his chance and took it. If Pogačar has improved on this flaw, then we could see the Slovenian claim the Giro-Tour double.
UAE Team Emirates have brought a horrifyingly strong team. Pogačar will be backed by three Grand Tour podium finishers in the form of João Almeida, Juan Ayuso and third place finisher last year Adam Yates. The climbing support goes deeper still with Pavel Sivakov, Marc Soler and Tim Wellens. Will this team be enough? Has Pogačar learned from the last two Tours? Is he actually better than ever? We’ll see.
Rating: 5/5
Tour de France 2024: The B-Tier contenders
Below Pogačar and Vingegaard sit the other two Grand Tour galacticos: Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič. The duo have clashed over the past two seasons, first meeting at the 2022 Vuelta. They renewed their rivalry throughout the spring of 2023 at the Volta a Catalunya and later the Giro d’Italia. Their paths have crossed already in 2024 at Paris-Nice and the Critérium du Dauphiné. Both have Grand Tour wins on their palmarès.
Primož Roglič
After a move in the winter to Bora-Hansgrohe – soon to be renamed to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe – Primož Roglič will return to the Tour de France after being absent last year.
The Slovenian infamously crumbled on La Planche des Belles Fille in 2020, becoming Tadej Pogačar’s first victim on the roads of the Tour de France. The following two years, Roglič crashed out of the race, failing to make it to Paris.
Since his abandonment in 2022, the former ski jumper has clocked some big results, including a Giro d’Italia win in 2023. In 2024, Roglič has been back to winning ways. After an underwhelming Paris-Nice, Roglič refound his mojo at the Critérium du Dauphiné in typical Roglič style. The Bora leader claimed two mountain stages before almost losing the race on the final day to Matteo Jorgenson.
The parcours suits Roglič. A favourable amount of time-trialling in the first week and a couple of Roglič-tailored hilly stages could suit the Slovenian. Alongside Giro champion Jai Hindley and former top five finisher Sasha Vlasov, Bora are taking their chances seriously. Roglič hasn’t beaten Vingegaard or Pogačar since changing teams, but that could all start at the Tour.
Rating: 3.5/5
Remco Evenepoel
From Belgium, Remco Evenepoel will provide cycling’s cultural homeland with a Tour contender. At the age of 24, Evenepoel will be making his long-awaited Tour de France debut this year.
So far in 2024, Evenepoel has had a less-than-ideal run-up to the Grand Boucle. A crash in Itzulia Basque Country saw the Soudal-QuickStep leader break his collarbone. Not long after, Evenepoel returned to racing at the Dauphiné. There, he earned a stage win and a top-ten finish in the GC. His climbing results were not convincing, however.
Remco will enter the Tour de France as the reigning world time-trial champion. These capabilities will come in handy on Stage 7’s long time-trial around Burgundy’s vineyards. Otherwise, he will look to capitalise on his good Classics legs early with the rolling profiles of the Italian Grand Départ.
He starts the Tour alongside Basque nearly-man Mikel Landa and doppelgänger Ilan van Wilder as mountain support. QuickStep have never won the Tour de France, usually opting for sprint finishes and breakaway exploits. The Evenepoel project has a lot resting on it and his Tour discovery will be telling.
Rating: 3/5
Tour de France 2024: Outside bets
At the Tour de France – as with any bike race – anything can happen. We’ve seen plenty of pre-race favourites crash out early on in the past. Although most talk is about ‘the big four’, there are plenty of outsiders who can upset the apple cart at the Tour de France.
Carlos Rodríguez
Ineos Grenadiers’ upcoming star Carlos Rodríguez will be hoping to replicate the Team Sky successes of the 2010s.
2024 has continued in winning ways for Rodríguez who himself won a stage in Morzine last year. He romped home with the Tour de Romandie title and struck gold again with an impressive stage win earlier this month at the Dauphiné.
Flanked by former Tour winners Egan Bernal and Geraint Thomas as well as Tom Pidcock and Laurens De Plus, Rodríguez has some real stars to help him on the climbs.
A bonus for the squad is that the 23-year-old is still eligible for the white jersey, and with no Pogačar in that competition this year, he has a serious chance to clinch that one.
Rating: 2/5
Adam Yates
Now, for the enemies within UAE Team Emirates. Adam Yates leads the charge after a third place finish last year.
The Brit has shown some real strength recently with an overall win and a handful of stage wins at the Tour de Suisse a couple of weeks ago.
If Pogačar crumbles with fatigue, then Yates could be given the green light to go for his own GC chances. Like last year, Yates could easily waltz onto the final podium if he’s up there supporting his Slovenian leader.
Rating: 2/5
Juan Ayuso
Like Yates, Ayuso will be riding for Pogačar. Like Yates, Ayuso has also finished on the podium at a Grand Tour.
Although still young, Ayuso has been building on his experience this year in UCI WorldTour stage races. The youngster earned a big win at the Itzulia Basque Country earlier this year – a race won by Vingegaard last year – and secured a silver medal at Tirenno-Adriatico in March. He crashed out of the Dauphiné recently, but he was spotted at altitude in Isola with Pogačar last week.
Ayuso can time-trial and he can diesel his way to the front. His sprint is decent and he’s become more savvy in races. Expect the unexpected.
Rating: 2/5
Richard Carapaz
EF Education-EasyPost’s hopes rest on former Giro winner Richard Carapaz. In the recent series of Netflix’s Unchained, Jonathan Vaughters said that Carapaz is the ‘most expensive rider the team has ever taken on’.
The Ecuadorian has been given a lot of support at EF over the past year, but his results have not mirrored this optimism. A lower table top-ten at the Tour de Romandie showed some signs of form, but a recent Tour de Suisse abandonment leaves us lukewarm. Carapaz hasn’t finished a Grand Tour since 2022, so he will be under the radar.
This will also be Carapoaz’s final Tour in the golden helmet before handing that over to one of his colleagues at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Rating: 1.5/5
Simon Yates
Twin to podium finisher Adam, Simon Yates will be expecting a triumphant swan song to his long tenure at Jayco-AlUla before he becomes another Visma domestique next season.
Often overlooked, Yates finished in fourth last year. Most of that time was gained with a stellar performance on the queen stage to Courchevel. In 2024, however, he will need to do more to end up in the same GC position.
He’s only Yates to win a Grand Tour but Simon has only taken one win so far this year, at the AlUla Tour, the home race of the team’s Saudi Arabian co-sponsor. He has been tuning up at an altitude camp, but recent snubs at stage races point towards a downward turn in form. Yates can pull a performance out the bag. He’s also known to excel on the roads of the Tour de France, having won a white jersey and two stages in the past.
However, we know Simon Yates. He isn’t a Tour de France winner.
Rating: 1/5
Enric Mas
Movistar’s steady engine Enric Mas is returning to the Tour de France one year after crashing out on Stage 1. The Catalan rider has given us some hope in the past having finished inside the top ten in the 2020 and 2021 Tours. He’s also a tried and tested Vuelta star having made the podium there on three occasions.
Don’t expect to see Mas attacking, he barely does. He’ll stick to the wheels and hope for a strong top ten finish. A reinvigorated Davide Formolo will attempt to tow Mas up the climbs, but when it comes down to it, Movistar haven’t clicked at the Tour in recent years.
Rating: 1/5
Who’s being overlooked?
Pogačar’s teammate João Almeida is likely to be a pivotal domestique, but he could sneak onto the podium if his rivals aren’t careful. Also, Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike could test the waters and attempt a top ten in the GC. Similarly, domestiques Sasha Vlasov and Hindley could contend for the top 5 if Roglič crashes again on French roads.
French hopes will be pinned on Romain Bardet and David Gaudu. The former will be competing at his last Tour de France having announced his retirement after next year’s Dauphiné.
The Cyclist Prediction
Jonas Vingegaard will be victorious at the last minute, taking back minutes in the final three stages of the Tour.
Pogačar has shown signs of weakness during the final week’s mountain stages at the last two Tours de France. Ayuso and Yates can’t save him if Vingegaard decides to capitalise on that. I understand that Vingegaard is coming in with an injury, but I can see a cliché scenario of him riding into form once the race gets into the nitty gritty of the final week. Stage 21’s time-trial around Nice will be Vingegaard’s crowing moment and the Dane will earn a third consecutive yellow jersey.
The rest of the podium will be filled by Slovenians. Tadej Pogačar comes home in second and Primož Roglič somehow manages to reach third place ahead of a barrage of UAE riders in the middle ranks of the top ten.
In reality, this crystal ball will shatter when the live broadcast cuts to Vingegaard getting dropped on the Col du Galibier on Stage 4. Never say never, Chris Froome has done crazier things.
Need to know what’s at stake? Read our guide to the Tour de France prize money.
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