Tour de France Stage 21 Predictions: Get Vingegaard at 7/1 as Pogacar eyes six

The 2024 Tour de France comes to a finale like no other on Sunday, with – for the first time – Stage 21 ending  in somewhere other than Paris (live from 13:00 BST on Eurosport 1, 14:00 BST on ITV4).

And, for the first time since the unforgettable Tour of 1989, the final stage is an individual time-trial, meaning a tough outcome to call on the back of 11 wins and three each-way successes in a profitable last three weeks. My Tour de France Stage 21 predictions for the 33.7km from Monaco to Nice, though, will not include the runaway king of the road.

Tour de France Betting Odds

Tadej Pogacar is obviously the favourite to win stage 21 at 4/7, with Remco Evenepoel 7/4. Jonas Vingegaard is 7/1, with the remainder of the field 40/1 or longer

Cycling Odds

So, can we get win number 12?

The relentlessness of Tadej Pogacar over the past couple of days, at a time when he could have just held the wheel of Jonas Vingegaard rather than taking risks, shows that the Slovenian means business from stage one to 21. That’s how he’s ended up in a leader’s jersey at the end of 38 of the 41 racing days of Grand Tours so far this year.

Thankfully for the rest of the peloton, he’s not scheduled to ride at La Vuelta a Espana in August and September, with his participation at the Paris Olympics taking up his energies in the coming weeks. But before then, he’s got one last day in yellow to enjoy between Monaco and Nice.

Pogacar is the obvious choice, since the parcours is more a mountain time-trial than a traditional TT, potentially setting the soon-to-be champion up for a sixth stage win this year and a 17th of his Tour career. His odds being prohibitive mean there’s little value to be had there.

It was Remco Evenepoel who won the earlier TT of this Tour, on stage seven, but this is less his sort of bag than that 25.3km trip between Nuits-Saint-Georges and Gevrey-Chambertin, which never truly tested any rider’s uphill abilities.

Here, though, there is the Cat 2 climb up la Turbie, an 8.1km slog at an average gradient of 5.6%, and that is soon followed by the 1.6km climb up the Col d’Eze. The descent from there takes the riders in to Nice, where there is an out-and-back run along the picturesque Promenade des Anglais.

Had they stuck another seven laps of that in there it might have gained SOME of the feel of the Champs-Elysees, but with the two climbs being the dominant feature, Pogacar is understandably the big favourite, with GC rivals Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard the names in the frame.

Tadej Pogacar @ 4/7

What more can be said? In any other TT, I’d be on Evenepoel rather than Tadej, but this just looks set up for yet another Pogacar day.

And if he wins this one, he’ll not only be 60 per cent of the way to Eddy Merckx’s record of five Tour wins, but also halfway to the all-time great’s stage mark of 34 which was only recently surpassed by Mark Cavendish.

Pogacar is reaching silly numbers already.

Jonas Vingegaard E/W @ 7/1

I actually still fancy Remco more than Jonas in this one, despite the course not suiting the Belgian. But given the price, I’m ready to take the longer odds on Vingegaard for the each-way bet.

The defending champion has, in truth, never looked like getting close to Pogacar in what has been a mentally and emotionally draining few weeks on the comeback trail after his damaging crash in the Basque County in April.

But this is one quality rider, and he would love nothing more at this point than to finish with a strong TT and hit that podium with real belief that he can return for title number three in a year from now.

You can read all our latest Cycling Betting Tips here.