Form ranking: Tour de France 2019 favourites

Image 1 of 7

A triumphant Jakob Fuglsang crosses the line(Image credit: Getty Images)

The Tour de France is still more than 100 days away but, with all of the favourites having opened their racing accounts for the season, Cyclingnews takes a look at the contenders and ranks them according to their early form.

Fuglsang, who won the Critérium du Dauphiné two years ago and finished 12th at the Tour last year, started his season with sixth overall at the Vuelta a Murcia. He then won the Ruta del Sol with second on the punchy opening stage and second in the stage 3 time trial. Switching to Italy, he finished second at Strade Bianche behind Julian Alaphilippe - the stand-out rider of the season so far - and then made the final podium at Tirreno-Adriatico after a storming stage win in Recanati.

Overview: Overshadowed last year by the exploits of his twin brother, Simon, at the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España, Adam Yates is out to make his own breakthrough as a true contender for Grand Tour titles. After a disappointing Tour de France last year, where heat and nutrition were blamed for his failed GC bid, he will return to lead the line for Mitchelton-Scott in July, and it's been a solid start to the season for the 26-year-old.

He won a stage in Valencia and finished eighth overall, before taking fifth at Ruta del Sol. Moving up to WorldTour level at Tirreno-Adriatico, he stepped things up a notch, winning the team time trial with Mitchelton on the opening day before finishing second and third on the race's most difficult stages. Overall victory - which would have been his first since the 2014 Tour of Turkey - was so close, but in the end he was pipped by Primoz Roglic by a single second on the final-day time trial.

He was eighth on his season debut at the Vuelta a San Juan, before winning a stage and finishing fifth overall on home soil at the Tour Colombia. His first real test was Paris-Nice, and he performed strongly, in conditions that certainly didn't suit him, to finish second overall. Though perhaps not as eye-catching as his younger compatriot Egan Bernal, he was surprisingly good in the crosswinds on the opening two days. He went on the attack on the final day but couldn't topple Bernal, who'd built his lead in the time trial. The route as a whole wasn't mountainous enough to really suit Quintana, so he'll be pleased with second place and his week as a whole.j

Overview: The Italian was among the first riders to signal his intentions to attempt the Giro-Tour double. Nibali previously rode both Grand Tours as a youngster in 2008 and again in 2016, when he won the Giro and then used the Tour to prepare for the Rio Olympics. 2019 marks his first concerted tilt at the elusive double, and his early-season has been suitably low-key. He rode anonymously at the UAE Tour but showed some signs of improvement at Tirreno-Adriatico.

Nibali has remained in the headlines, of course, with speculation mounting that the 34-year-old might swap Bahrain-Merida for Trek-Segafredo in 2020. His Giro result seems pivotal to his contract negotiations, but the Tour is still an ambition. He is, after all, the only rider to have interrupted Sky's sequence of Tour wins thanks to his 2014 victory, and he will feel he has some unfinished business with La Grande Boucle after he crashed out of the race on Alpe d'Huez in 2019.

Patrick is a freelance sports writer and editor. He’s an NCTJ-accredited journalist with a bachelor’s degree in modern languages (French and Spanish). Patrick worked full-time at Cyclingnews for eight years between 2015 and 2023, latterly as Deputy Editor.