Tour De France Stage 2 Predictions: Winner, H2H Tips, Favourites & Odds (Time Trial - 18.7.2023)

Stage 16 of the 2023 Tour De France features the first and only time-trial of this year's edition. It's a 22.4 km run from Passy to Combloux, featuring also a steep climbs. Who will be the fastest time-trialist? Read here our Tour De France Stage 16 predictions, best odds, recommended bets on Winner, Top 3 & Head to Head, promo codes and free bets.

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It will not be a stage for time-trial specialists as the profile is not flat. Early on in the effort the riders will climb the Côte des Soudans (1.3Km; 8.8%) and descend back into the valley.

After the descent, the riders will climb the Côte de Domancy (second category, 2.7 km with an average gradient of 8.9%) that finishes with only 3.5 kilometers away from the finish.

The road goes uphill until the finish line in Combloux. Actually, the final ascent is 6.3 km long at  6.6%.  

Teams will have to decide if they want to switch onto road bikes at the foot of the climb.

There is also a chance of rain, which increases throughout the afternoon.

Stage 16 Favourites

Even if it's formally an individual-time trial, this stage will see GC contenders battle for the stage win and the yellow jersey (limited to Pogaçar and Vingegaard of course).

The final ascent could make big gaps, bigger than the ones we have seen so far in the first 15 days of racing.

In our opinion, unless there is heavy rain in the afternoon when the best riders are in action, it will be a Pogaçar vs Vingegaard showdown.

The Slovenian is normally incredibly strong in this discipline, especially in the Tour de France. Anyway, he doesn't have a single meaningful time-trial reference this year since he has been out injured for a couple of months.

Vingegaard’s last TT was in the Dauphiné, where he surprisingly lost to Mikkel Bjerg. His record is not as strong as Pogaçar but after 15 stages (and a day of rest) things could much different. Last year, he could have won the final time-trial, but didn't push as much as he can to “gift” the win to his team-mate Van Aert.

Wout Van Aert is the only non-GC rider who has a chance to win on Tuesday. He can climb very well, even at double digit gradients. Anyway, the Belgian prefers shorter ascents.

Carlos Rodriguez also is a good time trialist and is climbing very well. Anyway, he took advantage of Pogaçar and Vingegaard contolling each other to win Saturday's stage and to arrive with a little gap on Sunday. When the front duo went full gas - as they wll do in the TT - the young Spaniard lost more than one minute in two kilometers.

Long shots? Top 10 Contenders?

Adam Yates and Sepp Kuss have also climbed very well in support of their respective captain. Neither of these riders are ITT specialists but this is a traditional time trial, so they can be conteders for a top 10 placement.

Pello Bilbao is both a decent climber and time trialist and could leapfrog many riders in the overall standings with a good performance.

Jai Hindley also put in some decent TT rides this year but he is still far off the very best while Simon Yates' form doesn't look as good as in the first stages.

Surprising performances could come from Mattias Skjelmose, the already-mentioned Mikkel Bjerg, Ion Izagirre, Alexey Lutsenko, Michal Kwiatkowski and Jonathan Castoviejo.

Other possible Top 10 contenders are Nelson Oliveira, Tom Pidcock Remi Cavagna, Pierre Latour, Fred Wight, Kasper Agreen and Stefan Kung.

TOUR DE FRANCE STAGE 16 PREDICTIONS

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