Free tips for your Tour de France pool: Will these ten names ensure you'll win against your friends and/or colleagues?

Some may find it ridiculous that we're even writing this article - yes, we receive emails about that every year - while others approach us weeks before the Tour, asking when the article will be online - yes, we get those emails too. So, all in all, we can never please everyone, but most of all, we want to emphasize that we serve a broad audience, and these tips are largely part of that.

For the Tour de France, it's more challenging than, let's say, the Giro or Vuelta because the roster is generally stronger and the gems are harder to find. The line between including or not including certain riders is very thin, but in the meantime, we do expect the average pool player to know the winner of an important Tour preparation race ;)

We kick off this list with Carlos Rodríguez, a diamond in the rough riding for the British multimillion-dollar team INEOS Grenadiers. We can safely say that Jim Ratcliffe's team is in a sort of leader crisis, as the press release did not mention any ambitions for the general classification. And that's notable, considering the team only failed to win the Tour once between 2012 and 2019.

The 2019 winner 2019, Egan Bernal, is back for the first time since his serious crash at the beginning of last year - where he broke 11 ribs, his femur, kneecap, two thoracic vertebrae, a cervical vertebra, a metacarpal bone and his thumb - while Tom Pidcock, the winner of Alpe d'Huez last year, should also be able to perform well.

However, Rodríguez, one of Spain's greatest talents, is also in the running. Despite a serious crash, he finished seventh in the Vuelta last year, with more crashes plaguing him this year in Strade Bianche and more recently in the Critérium du Dauphiné (where he still finished ninth). The 22-year-old rider needs to stay on his bike, but if he does, he has the potential to lift his team out of the slump and end up high in the final rankings of this Tour de France. He has already proven how strong his legs are in major races such as the Tour of Lombardy, the Spanish Championship, the Tour of the Basque Country and the races mentioned earlier.

Last Tuesday, Jordi Meeus was informed by his team that he will be riding the Tour de France for the first time in his career. The 24-year-old rider from Lommel was immediately assigned the role of team leader at the German team BORA-hansgrohe, which he will share with general classification rider Jai Hindley.

Meeus knows how to position himself well, as evidenced by the 23 podium finishes he achieved in his two and a half years as a professional. In this Tour, there is an additional positive factor at play because he has at his disposal one of the best lead-outs in the world - Danny van Poppel. The fact that Meeus, who is Belgian, speaks the same language as Dutchman Van Poppel certainly helps as well.

In addition, the designated sprinter sees himself as someone who has a slight advantage over his competitors due to his climbing abilities. He performs well in the mountains, which can give him that extra bit of juice for his legs towards the end. The goal for this Tour is ambitious yet sincere: a stage win.

Neilson Powless is a rider that the average cycling enthusiast has already spotted in this year's spring races. The former Jumbo-Visma rider finished seventh in Milan-Sanremo, fifth in the Tour of Flanders and third in Dwars door Vlaanderen - before a crash in the Amstel Gold Race set him back for the Ardennes classics.

On paper, this Tour de France is very suitable for riders who are looking for stage wins through breakaway groups in the middle mountain stages. Powless is a familiar face in those scenarios, as seen in the Tour de France series on Netflix. He can occasionally be a little bit too hasty, but he hopes to have made progress in that regard this year.

With his one-day race and climbing abilities, the American is determined to secure a stage win for his team EF Education-EasyPost this year. He will also occasionally have to work as a domestique for team leader Richard Carapaz in the mountains.

New to the Tour this year is Uno-X, a Norwegian-Danish team consisting solely of riders from those countries. With Alexander Kristoff, they have the poster boy of Norwegian cycling in their ranks this year, but it's possible that he will be a distant memory within a few years due the performances of teammate Tobias Halland Johannessen.

The 23-year-old climber won the Tour de l'Avenir in 2021 and from that victory seemed to be heading straight for success in the pro ranks. However, knee problems at the end of 2022 and the beginning of this year made him experience the other side of the coin as well, to the point where he even considered quitting cycling.

Together with teammate Torstein Traeen - who recently recovered from testicular cancer, incidentally discovered during a routine doping check - Johannessen showed in the important preparatory race, the Critérium du Dauphiné, that he is on the road to recovery. Both Traeen and Johannessen can showcase their talents in the high mountains on behalf of Uno-X, although we believe the latter to have slightly more potential and punch.

In last year's Giro, they were already on our list: Mattias Skjelmose and Felix Gall, the two men who definitively pushed their way to the top in the most recent Tour de Suisse. We include the latter in our top ten for this Tour de France, as he has made significant leaps forward in recent months.

Gall is what you would call a purebred climber, someone who simply excels when the road goes uphill. The Austrian seemed poised to make the leap to the top last year, but ultimately made that leap in the past few months. His team, AG2R Citroën Team, saw that coming and decided not to select him for the Giro, instead focusing on the Tour de France, which is of great importance to the French team.

The mountain goat will play an important role in supporting team leader Ben O'Connor, but he will also have the freedom to do his own thing in the mountains. Stage wins and the polka dot jersey seem like realistic ambitions for the in-form Gall.

No more overpaid thirty-somethings, but young, promising twenty-somethings: that seems to be the switch Israel-Premier Tech has made in preparation for this Tour de France. Corbin Strong, a 23-year-old New Zealander, has benefited from that change. He will make his grand tour debut in Bilbao on Saturday.

Strong has been presented by his team as the sprinter of the team, but that is underselling him. He is more than capable of handling hilly terrain, which makes him an interesting prospect for transitional stages, where Israel-Premier Tech was also successful last year.

The pure bunch sprints are still a bit beyond his reach, but Strong could easily be a rider who frequently finds himself in the right position in various types of stages. He has proven that this year, on a variety of terrains. In the mountains, his team is relying on the slightly more experienced riders Michael Woods and Dylan Teuns, both of whom have shown good form.

He may not win any prizes for elegance, but with Louis Meintjes, you always know what to expect. The 31-year-old South African almost always finishes in the top fifteen of the general classification in a grand tour, and in recent years, he has increasingly been fighting in the battle for stage wins.

He's not very good at jostling for positions, so Meintjes often finds himself at a considerable distance after one week. However, he uses that to his advantage, as it allows him to join early breakaways in tougher stages and gradually work his way back to the top ten.

To label Meintjes as just that kind of rider would be selling him short because, all in all, he is an excellent climber. His impressive seventh-place finish in the Dauphiné is proof why Intermarché-Circus-Wanty is focusing everything on securing a top ten spot for him.

Another Belgian! Maxim Van Gils is a 23-year-old rider from Brasschaat who has great potential. The rider from Lotto-Dstny has been racking up a string of notable results this year, with impressive performances in the Ardennes trilogy as the absolute highlights. He was also in contention several times in the recently concluded Critérium du Dauphiné, before falling ill and having to abandon the race.

In the upcoming Tour de France, Van Gils, along with teammates Pascal Eenkhoorn and Victor Campenaerts, will have the opportunity to shine in stages that are too challenging for sprinter Caleb Ewan. Among the three men, Van Gils seems to have the most climbing potential while also possessing a decent sprint.

This year, he even managed to compete in bunch sprints in the Tour of Catalonia and the Dauphiné, making him an interesting candidate for certain types of stages. In addition, it seems he doesn't quite know yet how good he actually is uphill, so he is a rider who can provide enjoyment for himself and all of Belgium in the coming weeks.

Teams that clearly communicate what their riders' plans are in grand tours, we love it. The French team Arkéa Samsic is a well-known example of this, as they have three team leaders who thoroughly explain their ambitions and how they are to be achieved before each Giro, Tour or Vuelta.

In the upcoming Tour, their absolute goal is a stage victory, which Warren Barguil and Clément Champoussin will be chasing in the mountains. In the sprinter stages, that role is for Luca Mozzato, who was also on our list last year. He didn't disappoint back then, securing five top ten finishes.

Team manager Sébastien Hinault sees Mozzato not only as a pure sprinter but also as someone who can handle the slightly hilly stages. "In these two types of races, he can seize his chances," says the sporting director of the French team. However, it should be noted that the Italian is not having his best year so far.

Last but not least on this list is Ion Izagirre, the Basque daredevil on the Cofidis team. We couldn't bring ourselves to start this list without including a Basque rider, as the pride of that province emerges prominently in the first stages of this Tour de France. Indeed, the Tour starts in Bilbao, the capital of the Spanish autonomous region. While we consider Pello Bilbao to be too well-known, Alex Aranburu's role at Movistar is still unclear.

But we do know more about Izagirre: he is always, without exception, strong in the Basque Country. In his last seven participations, he has finished on the podium of the Tour of the Basque Country six (!!!) times, which in part makes him incredibly motivated for the first stages in his home region.

Later in the Tour, Izagirre will likely take on the role of stage hunter, while also not completely abandoning the general classification after the opening days. However, it is Guillaume Martin who is primarily targeting the overall ranking for Cofidis, allowing Izagirre to attack to his heart's content.