Tour de France 2018: From Chris Froome to Mark Cavendish via Geraint Thomas, five British riders to watch

Three British riders will represent Team Sky while Birmingham-born Irish rider Dan Martin will also be on the start line at Saturday's Grand Depart in Vendee

For a long time the The Tour de France held a mystique for British cycling fans, an ethereal realm of deadly cobbles and lunar peaks scaled only by a lunatic bunch of Belgians, French and Dutchmen.

Up until 1994 only one Briton – Tom Simpson – had ever worn the yellow jersey, but since then things have changed, and After a taste of success with riders like Chris Boardman and David Millar in the late 90s, the Team Sky revolution took hold creating an era so dominant that Vincenzo Nibali is now the only non-Briton to have won the Tour since 2011.

Four-time winner Chris Froome is the likely to lead the British contingent in the general classification while Mark Cavendish is chasing the four stage victories he needs to match the legendary Eddy Merckx. Here we take a look at the five Britons – and one British-born Irishman – in this year’s peloton.

Chris Froome

Age: 33
Team: Team Sky
Previous appearances: 2008 (84th), 2012 (second), 2013 (first), 2014 (DNF – withdrew stage five), 2015 (first), 2016 (first), 2017 (first)
Stage wins: Seven (2012 – stage seven; 2013 – stages eight, 15 and 17; 2015 – stage 10; 2016 – stages eight and 18)

Chris Froome heads to France as the bookmakers’ favourite, but perhaps not that of the French crowds. As his Salbutamol case rumbles on, Froome will aim to win a fourth straight and record-equalling fifth overall Tour title, just two months after his victory on the Giro d’Italia. History beckons, but he is likely to face a hostile crowd, judging by comments already issued by Bernard Hinault – the last Frenchman to win the Tour who has revved up his home crowd by suggesting the peloton should go on strike if Froome races while that Salbutamol issue remains outstanding. Froome has proven himself the best Grand Tour racer of the age, but distractions will be legion as he aims to complete the first Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani in 1998.

Chris Froome will be riding to win his fifth Tour de France (AP)

Adam Yates

Age: 25
Team: Mitchelton-Scott
Previous Appearances: 2015 (50th), 2016 (fourth)
Stage wins: None

Could have we have a British winner not named Froome? Yates is perhaps an outsider to be in yellow in Paris but after the run of his twin brother Simon at the Giro d’Italia, who is willing to bet against something similar from Adam? The 25-year-old was fourth overall, and wore white as the best young rider, when he raced the Tour last in 2016, and now has his sights set on the podium. The Lancastrian had a rough start to the season, suffering a fractured pelvis on the Volta a Catalunya in March, but he has bounced back and finished second behind Geraint Thomas on the Criterium du Dauphine while winning a stage. The list of white jersey winners that have gone on to take yellow is short, but Yates is not a man who frets over such records.

Adam Yates will lead Mitchelton-Scott's Tour (Getty Images)

Geraint Thomas

Age: 32
Team: Team Sky
Previous appearances: 2007 (140th), 2010 (67th), 2011 (31st), 2013 (140th), 2014 (22nd), 2015 (15th), 2016 (15th), 2017 (DNF – crashed stage nine).
Stage wins: One (2017 – stage one).

Should Sky’s Plan ‘A’ in France go wrong, they will turn to Plan ‘G’. After years as a super-domestique, Thomas has stretched his legs to be given a chance as a team leader of late, but saw his hopes of winning the Giro last summer ended by a freak accident caused by a police motorbike. The Welshman bounced back to wear yellow for the first week of last year’s Tour after winning the opening time trial in Dusseldorf, only to crash again, but Sky have reason to believe the 32-year-old has the attributes needed to win a Grand Tour. ‘G’ won the Criterium du Dauphine – the traditional warm-up to the Tour – in June and will be the man Sky turn to if anything goes wrong for Froome.

Geraint Thomas wore yellow in last year's race (Getty)

Mark Cavendish

Age: 33
Team: Team Dimension Data
Previous appearances: 2007 (withdrew after stage eight), 2008 (withdrew after stage 14), 2009 (131st), 2010 (154th), 2011 (130th), 2012 (142nd), 2013 (148th), 2014 (DNF – abandoned after stage 1), 2015 (142nd), 2016 (DNF – abandoned after stage 16), 2017 (abandoned after stage four).
Stage wins: 30 (2008 – stages five, eight, 12 and 13; 2009 – stages two, three, 10, 11, 19 and 21; 2010 – stages five, six, 11, 18 and 20; 2011 – stages five, seven, 11, 15 and 21; 2012 – stages two, 18 and 20; 2013 – stages five and 13; 2015 – stage seven; 2016 – stages one, three, six and 14).

If Cavendish can repeat one of his best years at the Tour, by the time the race reaches Paris he could hold the all-time record for the number of stage wins as he needs four to match the great Eddy Merckx. But for Cavendish to do that, he will need to find form which has deserted him for the past two years due to a miserable run of luck – a succession of crashes and illnesses that have limited him to just two wins in the past two seasons. His sole win in 2018 came at the Dubai Tour in February, but he has suffered injuries in crashes at the Abu Dhabi Tour and Milan-Sanremo since then, and was unable to make an impact in either the Tour de Yorkshire, Tour of California or Tour of Slovenia, leaving his form as a major question mark.

Mark Cavendish is chasing history (Getty)

Luke Rowe

Age: 28
Team: Team Sky
Previous appearances: 2015 (136th), 2016 (151st), 2017 (167th)
Stage wins: None

The fact that Rowe has put himself in the frame for Sky’s Tour squad at all is a remarkable feat, less than a year after breaking his leg in several places while white-water rafting on his brother’s stag do. He was expected to miss up to a year, but returned to action in February at the Abu Dhabi Tour. A busy schedule since has included Paris-Roubaix, the Tour de Romandie and the Criterium, where he was part of the Sky squad that bossed the team time trial on stage four. Rowe’s nous as a road captain is highly-valued by Sky and if they feel he has the fitness needed for three weeks he should be in the squad.

Dan Martin

Age: 31
Team: UAE Team Emirates
Previous Appearances: 2012 (35th), 2013 (33rd), 2015 (39th), 2016 (ninth), 2017 (sixth)
Stage wins: One (2013 – stage 9)

In the last couple of years, Birmingham-born Irishman Martin has elevated himself from a rider who might nick a stage victory to someone who deserves to be in the GC conversation. He followed up ninth place overall in 2016 with a remarkable sixth in 2017 – remarkable because he rode from stage nine onwards with two broken vertebrae in his back, and received next to no support from a Quick-Step Floors team built around the sprint ambitions of Marcel Kittel. UAE Team Emirates cannot offer too many resources either but that will not worry Martin who, after a slow start to the season, suggested his form is where it needs to be with a stage win and fourth place overall in the Criterium du Dauphine.

Dan Martin has not won a Tour de France stage since 2013 (Getty)

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