Tour de France Stage 15 Predictions: Pogacar to go for the throat

Saturday’s critical stage of the 2024 Tour de France to the Pla d’Adet saw Tadej Pogacar take a huge step towards a third title in five years. But Sunday’s 197.7km between Loudenvielle and the Plateau de Beille will be equally as important with the yellow jersey still very much in play as the riders take on nearly 5000 metres of climbing (Live from 10:30 BST on Eurosport 1, 10:45 BST on ITV4).

After picking the top three on the nose yesterday, including a 7/2 win for Pogacar and a 25/1 each-way punt on Remco Evenepoel, I’m hoping to get similar results in my Tour de France Stage 15 predictions.

Tour de France Betting Odds

Pogacar is the obvious favourite for stage 15 at 100/30, with Vingegaard the equally predictable second fav on 7/2. Jayco AlUla's Simon Yates can be backed at 4/1 or Richard Carapaz of EF Education-EasyPost at 8/1. Santiago Buitrago, at 16/1, is the only other rider at a shorter price than 20/1.

Cycling Odds

Once more on Saturday, just as on Wednesday, the Tour’s top three were the first trio home, and the biggest question mark for Sunday pertains to which of cycling’s current holy trinity can back up 24 hours on from such an absorbing day of action up the Col du Tourmalet and Pla d’Adet.

Back-to-back days in the Pyrenees are always going to cause issues even for the very best in the business, and as such Pogacar, reigning champ Jonas Vingegaard and third-placed Evenepoel all have differing degrees of questions to answer.

The stage profile looks pretty brutal, with four Cat 1 climbs giving way to some pretty sharp descents before the massive HC slopes of Plateau de Beille – averaging 7.9% – are taken on for the final 15.8km.

On any normal day, this might be a day for Pogacar to attack, just as he did on the final 4.7km of Saturday’s stage 14. But if he’s feeling even slightly under-par on Sunday he might be happy to sit off Vingegaard and force the Dane to do something special. Either way, Vingegaard will have to be at his brilliant best if he’s going to take a bite into the current 1:57 time gap.

In 35 days of Grand Tour cycling in 2024, Pogacar has ended 32 of them in yellow, and while that can be part-attributed to the huge crash in the Basque Country in April which so blighted Vingegaard’s season, there is simply no doubting who the leading cyclist of 2024 is at this point.

Tadej Pogacar @ 100/30

Yes, yes. It’s the obvious pick. But it’s surely the best pick too. If anyone can look fresh going into a second day in the Pyrenees and two full weeks into a Grand Tour, Pogacar does.

Sunday could be the key day in his bid to win a third title in five years, and the ability to stretch his lead to almost two minutes on Saturday builds up an important buffer in the GC battle.

The pressure will be on Visma-Lease a Bike to push Pogi to the limit in order for Vingegaard to win back some time, but in truth I can just see the Slovenian going for a typically spontaneous attack on the Plateau de Beille in an attempt to all-but kill off the competition.

Whether or not he wins by enough to truly put the GC race to bed, I can see him leaving everything out there ahead of Monday’s rest day and getting a third stage win of Le Tour ’24.

Carlos Rodriguez E/W @ 50/1

My massive admiration for Remco had me considering going for the same 1-2-3 on back-to-back days, but something tells me he’s due a slight down day.

Sure, Evenepoel has ridden smart at times in this Tour, not being tempted to go hell-for-leather when Pogacar has attacked off the front. In his debut on this grandest of Grand Tours, he has seemingly learned from his blowout at the Vuelta last year and accepted that a podium finish in Nice would be a brilliant result.

But he has yet to show that he has the legs on back-to-back days in the mountains in this event, and Saturday saw an example of what Carlos Rodriguez appears ready to do.

The Ineos Grenadiers rider has three top-10 finishes on mountain stages and looked fresher than ever when finishing fourth up to Pla d’Adet. I also fancy him on similar parcours to which he triumphed on in the Tour last year up to Morzine les Portes du Soleil.

Partly for the sake of keeping it fresh, but also because I’m expecting a slightly more tiresome day for Evenepoel, I fancy the outside shot on Rodriguez for Sunday. And at 50/1, an implied probability of 2% can be translated into a decent each-way coup.

You can read all our latest Cycling Betting Tips here.