This year will be the 100th Tour de France and it begins in Porto-Vecchio in Corsica on 29th June. Unusually the race will be entirely on French soil; the last time was in 1988. It will also be one the hardest Tour de France races, with a number of particular difficult Alpine stages.

Betting on this event can be simple or it can be complex depending on your approach. One thing that is certain is that any odds we might quote today are subject to change, in the Tours do France odds change on a daily basis.

The Paris Roubaix this year has had its fair share of falls and one of the spectacular falls was suffered by Yoann Offredo, the co-leader of FDJ. Offredo was moving along fast and had turned his head back when he crashed into a warning sign while he was more or less at the middle of the stretch. After the crash, Offredo was flung right on the tarmac and suffered pretty nasty injuries.

Talking about Offredo’s fall, Marc Madiot, the directeur sportif of FDJ said, “The accident occurred at the back of the peloton. Offredo had requested for a change of bikes and before I could arrive he failed to see that the peloton separated on either side of the island and he crashed into the warning sign in full speed. Offredo has sustained injuries on his knees, ribs and chin. He stopped like that….”

Taking to his Twitter account, Offredo write, “A second of inattention…Broken fingers/scratched chin/but the morale is especially damaged”

FDJ is however, yet to announce how long Offredo will have to sit out due to the injuries that he suffered.

The other hope for FDJ at the Paris Roubaix, Matthieu Ladagnous suffered a crash with another 60km of the stretch remaining while he was in the front pack. Ladagnous suffered a fall after a rider in front of him fell. The fall injured Ladagnous’ left leg and he had no choice but to abandon the race.

Madiot said that the team could not have imagined such misfortunate. Following the falls, FDJ’s best rider is Johan Le Bon at the 26^th position and 3:17 down on Fabian Cancellara, the winner.

Speaking to the media, Le Bon seemed pragmatic about his and his team’s performance. He said that he finished and this will serve him in the future but the overall situation is pretty sad for the team.

In a classic upset case, Andy Schleck pulled out of the final rounds of the Tour in Australia after his bike crippled in the mid race. Instead of following the regular protocol of informing the authorities and finishing last, he managed to sneak out of the race entirely and the red lantern that ought to have been awarded to him had he stuck to the protocol.  By now people have breathed a sigh of relief as Schleck has been considered and not just awarded with a disciplinary action due to the breach he caused in the final leg of the tour. His team mates, on the contrary continued with the competition and were reportedly furious with his action and the lack of judgment that he demonstrated which could have taken a different shape altogether and might have cost them dearly.

It was his debut appearance in the Tour Down Under and one thing is for sure, there had been much left to be wished from a cyclist of his prowess. Yet, right now his fans must be going through huge relief that atleast it was just a mechanical snug that pulled the cyclist of the race because the last time he was on a race he had a grim accident that smashed his pelvis and that led to the exhale that he was under all this time before he reached Adelaide for the before mentioned cycling race. Well, rest assured he is all geared up for the next race that he takes part into and by then his bad luck streak would surely have ceased to function.

The younger brother of Franck Schleck who also rides for the same team, that is RadioShack Leopard, happens to be the retroactive winner of the Tour de France of the year 2010 after Contador had been stripped of the title post getting a positive result in the drug  test.

Coming from a long family line of professional cyclists, Andy Schleck recently announced that he definitely sees Richie Porte as a threat in the upcoming Tour de France tournament. Andy Schleck is a part of the UCI ProTour Team RadioShack-Leopard.

Andy Schleck has been the runner up in the Tour de France in the years 2009 and 2011. The 2010 Tour de France title went to him after winner Alberto Contador was stripped of his title due to drug charges. Andy’s older brother Frank Schleck is also a very well known professional cyclist. Their father, Johnny Schleck was also a professional cyclist and he was a part of both Vuelta-a- Espana and the Tour de France in the years of 1965 to 1974.  Their grandfather, Gustave Schleck was also in the same profession in the 1930’s.

Other contenders in the Tour de France, last year’s winner Brad Wiggins and runner-up Chris Froome are also on his list, says Andy Schleck. He says that this year, there are several good competitors in the tournament and he has definitely not written off Richie Porte as a threat. Andy skipped the Tour de France 2012 because of injuries but he all set to come back in the game. Since he has been the runner up in the past few years, the other players also see him as a powerful contender for the title. Andy Schleck says that he is honored and happy to see that the others think of him in that way.

Richie Porte is a part of Team Sky and he is known mostly for his impeccable skill in speeding up. That, Andy says is one of the things which he is looking forward to beat in terms of Richie Porte. In the year 2010, in the Giro d’Italia, Richie Porte came seventh and he has been a major asset for the 2012 winnings of the Team Sky.