The contenders

CHRIS FROOME Age: Team: Country: Stage wins:

32 Team Sky Britain Seven Froome heads to France as favourite. If he is wearing yellow in Paris this year, he will stand alone on four overall wins, tantalisingly close to the all-time record of five, held jointly by Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil and Miguel Indurain. However, each of his previous Tour wins was preceded by victory in the Criterium du Dauphine; this year he could only manage fourth.

RICHIE PORTE Age: Team: Country: Stage wins:

32 BMC Australia None Porte has emerged as the man mostly likely to challenge his former team leader and good friend. Although Porte was pipped to overall victory in the Dauphine by Jakob Fuglsang, he had the beating of Froome in the time trial and in the mountains. The main barrier might be mental. Porte has suffered bad luck in his two genuine bids for Grand Tour victory to date. A puncture and time penalty effectively ended his attempt to win the Giro d’Italia for Team Sky in 2015 and another mechanical problem cost him almost two minutes on stage two of last year’s Tour. Can it be third time lucky for the Tasmanian?

NAIRO QUINTANA Age: Team: Country: Stage wins:

27 Movistar Colombia One Quintana began the year with ambitious plans for a Giro-Tour double, but will need a spectacular rebound in France to avoid walking away empty-handed. The Colombian was unexpectedly beaten in Italy by Tom Dumoulin and, as Alberto Contador can attest from his own double attempt in 2015 – when he won the Giro but faded badly in the Tour – there is usually a price to be paid in France for those who competed in Italy.

ALBERTO CONTADOR Age: Team: Country: Stage wins:

34 Trek-Segafredo Spain

Three Having put off a mooted retirement to join Trek-Segafredo, the two-time Tour winner heads to France as something of an unpredictable force. With memories of his victories fading, Contador can easily be put to one side but his aggressive style and never-say-die attitude deserve respect. He appears in a better place mentally away from the oft-turbulent Tinkoff team that folded at the end of last season, and his surprising performance in the Dauphine time trial – where he was faster than Froome – shows there is life in him yet.

FABIO ARU Age: Team: Country: Stage wins:

26 Astana Italy

None Aru’s outstanding 2015 season, when he finished second in the Giro d’Italia and won the Vuelta a Espana, persuaded Astana to hand him leadership in the 2016 Tour at Vincenzo Nibali’s expense, but he failed to fire on his way to a 13th-placed finish, almost 20 minutes back on Froome. Nibali is now gone and Astana is largely built around Aru, but he remains difficult to read. Although he came away from the Dauphine sounding confident about his form following his fifth-placed finish, the fact is the race was won by his Danish team-mate Fuglsang – who had been promised leadership of the Tour team before injury forced Aru out of the Giro. Two-headed monsters rarely prosper in cycling, so who will Astana back?