The White jersey?
It will be interesting to see what happens in
Nairo Quintana’s absence as he was by far and away the best young rider last year. It’s rare for a young rider to come through like that and have an impact at the very top of the overall classification like Jan Ullrich and Andy Schleck once did. Based on what we’ve seen so far this season, I would imagine Michał Kwiatkowski is a strong possibility to win the jersey. I don’t think he’s aiming to finish in the top five, but a place in the top 10 might well be good enough to claim the young rider title. He’s got all of the attributes to do it. He can sometimes stay with the best in the big mountains and he’s certainly one of the strongest.
Bob Jungels is another potential contender based on what we’ve seen so far at the Dauphiné, and Dutchman Tom Dumoulin is another name to consider. However, I think both of these riders are strong time trialists but are not so good in the big mountains, and this will undermine their hopes. Given the mountainous nature of the Tour, I could see one of the French climbers coming through to win it. Romain Bardet is a possibility as he rode well on his debut last year. But Warren Barguil may be an even better bet. He’s super strong on the climbs as he showed when he won those two Vuelta stages last year. His biggest problem, though, could be getting a ride with Giant-Shimano as they are pretty focused on the sprints with Kittel and Degenkolb.
The white jersey sometimes gets overlooked or undervalued but I see it as something very valuable for the Tour and for younger riders. I won it in my second Tour and my whole focus that year was keeping it all of the way to Paris. Panasonic won the team time trial and that got me the white jersey. I spent the rest of the race focusing on defending it. It was a great feeling to ride into Paris wearing it and to have the chance to go up on the final podium. Like me, that is the only way most young riders are going to get those experiences as you can’t expect them to challenge the top pros right from the off unless they are exceptional performers like Quintana.