People betting on cycling à propos of the 2017 Tour de France have not been disappointed by three-time winner of the competition and defending champion Christopher ‘Chris’ Clive Froome, who is on his quest for a threepeat. Froome has yet to win a stage but why bother winning battles when you can win the war (six cyclists have won the Tour without winning a stage in the past, as recently as 2006). For example, the British cycling betting favorite finished stage 5 on Wednesday third behind Fabio Aru and Dan Martin, but his overall time of 18h 38′ 59″ allowed him to strip teammate Geraint Thomas of the yellow jersey the Welsh had been wearing as leader of the general classification for the previous four stages.
Now that Froome has been decked out in the maillot jaune for the 45th time in his career, he is confident he can defend the lead all the way to the last day in Paris, even though the last team to keep the yellow jersey from day one until the finish of the race was the now-defunct Faemino-Faema. “I’m going to do everything to keep the yellow, but it’s a long way to the finish,” he said. Hey, it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock n’ roll. “I haven’t raced much this season, I’m fresher than other years, and I hope in the third part of the Tour I’ll get even better.” Froome is 12 seconds ahead of Thomas and 14 seconds ahead of Aru.
On the other hand, Nairo Quintana – who people betting on cycling had pegged as another fave – is trailing Froome by 54 seconds; which is a lifetime in cycling betting. “It was a very difficult day for me, we rode very fast and it was very hot,” the Colombian summarized the fifth stage which he finished 9th. “It wasn’t the best day for me, but we have to keep calm and see little by little how everything goes. There is still a lot of race to go.” The Movistar rider tried to keep up with the same group Froome was in the final meters of the stage, but it was to no avail.
Back to the champ, Froome was not able to win his first stage on La Planche des Belles Filles like he did in 2012, but the man wearing the yellow jersey following that stage is the true winner – figuratively but also sometimes literally; the rider with the yellow jersey at the end of this mountain climb has gone on to win the Tour on the two occasions on which it has been included (Bradley Wiggins in 2012 and Vincenzo Nibali in 2014). “It gives us a glimpse of where everyone is at,” Froome said following the stage. And in his case, where he is at in addition to the top of the general classification is the top of lists of people betting on cycling as well as the top of cycling betting odds-boards.