Tour de France stage 19 predictions and cycling betting tips: Pogacar can star on Tour's highest summit

Where to watch stage 19 of the Tour de France

Eurosport 1 & ITV4, 11.30am Friday

Best bet

Tadej Pogacar to win stage 19
3pts 5-6 bet365

Tour de France stage 19 predictions

Victor Campenaerts secured the first Tour de France stage win of his career on Thursday, holding off Michal Kwiatkowski and Matteo Vercher to win from a breakaway.

The chances of the break making it all the way to the finish for a third day in succession seem pretty slim as the peloton prepare to scale the highest point ever reached by the Tour de France on Friday.

The second of three monumental ascents, the Cime de la Bonette tops out at 2,802m above sea level and measures nearly 23km in length at an average gradient of almost seven per cent.

After a long descent into Isola, Friday's stage finishes with another punishing in the ski resort of Isola 2000.

On devising the route at the end of last year, Tour organisers will have no doubt been hoping for another battle royale between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar. But last weekend's domination in the Pyrenees by race leader Pogacar showed that the Slovene is in better shape than Vingegaard, whose serious crash in the spring appears to be catching up with him.

A fully-fit Vingegaard would have been a formidable foe on such terrain, especially as he has shown before that he is perhaps more adept than Pogacar at extremely high altitude.

However, the Dane was left behind by Remco Evenepoel on Wednesday's final climb and, on what we have seen at this year's race, he will need Pogacar to crack completely if he is to overturn a deficit of over three minutes on Friday's stage.

Vingegaard has yet to drop Pogacar at this year's Tour whereas the Slovene has got the jump on him on numerous occasions, and the near-40km descent off the Bonette could be where Pogacar attempts to make his move and put the destination of the yellow jersey beyond doubt with a third summit finish success of this year's Tour.

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