The battle for the white jersey offers an opportunity to keep an attentive eye on the most exciting stage racing talent in the world and the youth classification has had outstanding winners on most occasions ever since Francesco Moser took the first crown in 1975. This year's competition shapes up to be an could turn out to be a one-sided affair with Nairo Quintana being the big favourite but with a dangerous first week, a number of strong rivals are ready to strike.

The white jersey competition is open to all riders born on January 1 1990 or later and this year 32 riders will line up with a chance to wear the coveted tunic. Not many riders have won the jersey more than once but this year a double winner is likely to emerge. 2013 and 2014 winners Nairo Quintana and Thibaut Pinot are both eligible for the competition while 2012 and 2011 winners Tejay van Garderen and Pierre Rolland are both too old. Quintana and Pinot are the obvious favourites and both of them feature prominently on our list of favourites for the overall victory too. We have given a detailed analysis of the four biggest favourites in those previews and will just make a short discussion below. More details can be found in our lengthy discussion in our past articles.

At just 25 years of age, Nairo Quintana has already established himself firmly as one of the leading grand tour riders in the world and he is naturally included in the fabulous four who are widely tipped to battle it out for the overall victory. After getting his first taste of grand tour racing in the 2012 Vuelta, he had a remarkable Tour de France debut in 2013 when he finished second overall and won both the white and the polka-dot jerseys despite having originally started the race as a domestique. Last year he confirmed his potential by winning the Giro before crashing out of the Vuelta while wearing the leader’s jersey.

This year he gets his first chance to be the clear Movistar leader in the Tour and even though Alejandro Valverde still has personal ambitions too, the team has done nothing to hide that Quintana is the captain. Among the young riders, he is clearly the best climber as he is the only one who has proved his ability to match the likes of Chris Froome, Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali in the mountains.

Compared to his three rivals for the overall victory, Quintana may be a small step below. In last year’s Vuelta he had had a seamless preparation while Contador and Froome were both coming into the race on the back of crashes at the Tour. Nonetheless, they both dropped Quintana in the first big mountain stage. Furthermore, the Colombian wasn’t too convincing when he won the Giro so it will be hard for him to win the race overall. However, he should be a step above the rest of the young riders on the climbs and that will be a massive advantage in a race that is likely to be decided on the climbs.

The biggest favourites for the white jersey are not very strong time triallists but that won’t be much of an issue on this year’s course. Quintana is likely lose a bit of time to Pinot in the first stage but he should gain a lot more in the team time trial where Movistar are among the strongest. The most difficult part for Quintana will be to get safely through the first week. However, he is supported by a stronger team than both Romain Bardet and Pinot for these tricky stages and so should be better positioned. He is probably not as strong as Bardet on the cobbles but if he avoids any bad luck, he should be able to take it back in the mountains. If he doesn’t have a major setback in the first week, Quintana will be very hard to beat in this competition.

His biggest rival is likely to be Pinot. Last year the Frenchman proved how much he has improved his climbing skills and he was actually the only rider who briefly manage to put Nibali into difficulty. This year he has stepped up his level a further notch with queen stage wins in both the Tours de Romandie and Suisse. In the former race, he even beat Quintana, Nibali and Froome.

However, Quintana was not at his best in that race and it will take a remarkable turnaround for Pinot to be stronger than the Colombian in the Tour. Quintana’s hardest part will be the first week but that may be even more difficult for Pinot who is very poor in the fight for position. He has improved a lot in the last few years and his team should be slightly stronger but it still be a challenge to avoid unnecessary time losses. Furthermore, his team will be firmly beaten by Movistar in the team time trial and he could find himself with time to make up after the first nine stages. However, if anyone is going to challenge Quintana in the mountains, it has to be Pinot.

Last year Romain Bardet spent several stages in the white jersey and was a close challenger to Pinot. However, he came up short in the end and in general he was not at Pinot’s level on the climbs. This year he has clearly stepped up his level a further notch with a big stage win in the Dauphiné and a 6th place in Liege but Pinot has improved too. It is hard to imagine that he will suddenly be climbing better than his compatriot.

However, he has a few assets that he will try to exploit. First of all he rode strongly on the cobbles last year and in general he is better suited to the first week than both Quintana and Pinot. Unlike Pinot, he is a great descender and he has proved that he is not afraid of putting his rivals under pressure when the downhill sections are tricky. The lack of time trialling is an advantage as he is weaker than both Quintana and Pinot in the individual discipline. On the other hand, his team isn’t very strong in the TTTs and they have done pretty poorly in the collective tests this year. Bardet may have an advantage over Pinot after the first week but it will be hard to maintain it in the mountains. The two big favourites will probably have to have a major setback for Bardet to win the jersey and as this is his final year when he can go for the honour, he may never stand on the podium in Paris with the white tunic on his shoulders.

Wilco Kelderman is making his Tour de France debut and is clearly one of the biggest stage race talents in the world. Last year he rode a remarkable Giro to finish in the top 10 overall and even though he faded slightly in the final week, he proved that he can be up there with the best. A few weeks later he did even better when he finished fourth overall in the Dauphiné and suddenly it was evident for everyone that he has the skills to win a grand tour in the future.

However, he hasn’t been at the same level since that race and the 2015 season has been a series of disappointments so far. He fell ill in the Ardennes and crashed in the Dauphiné but even when he has not been set back by any incidents he has not been at his best. However, he showed signs of improvements by winning the Dutch TT championships and the Tour has always been his big goal.

However, even if he is at 100%, it will be hard to win the white jersey. Despite his climbing prowess, he has not shown that he can match the likes of Quintana, Pinot and Bardet. For him to realistically go for the honours, he would need more time trialling and so this year’s course is not a perfect one for him. A long TT would have made him a contender. Even though he should be better suited to the first week than his key rivals, the amount of climbing will make it hard for him, especially as most of it comes in the final week where he suffered at last year’s Giro.

It is hard to imagine that the winner won’t be one of those four riders. If one has to point to an outsider, Eduardo Sepulveda will be the one. While most of the young riders won’t be concerned with the GC, the Argentinean is the leader of Bretagne and will get full team support in his attempt to finish in the top 15. He is both a talented time triallist and a good climber but it is hard to imagine that he will be able to match the four best riders on the climbs. After all he could only manage second in the Tour of Turkey and has always been off the pace in the WorldTour races. Most recently, he rode solidly in the Route du Sud but as he was distanced by Pierre-Roger Latour and unable to drop Stephane Rossetto, it will take a remarkable change for him to win the white jersey.

Warren Barguil also deserves a mention. The Frenchman finished in the top 10 in last year’s Vuelta where he went for GC in a grand tour for the first time. However, he has different goals in this race where he mainly aims at a stage win. On the other hand, we won’t completely rule him out if he suddenly finds himself in a good position overall as it would then be hard for him to give it up. He has proved that he can stay consistent in a three-week race and usually just gets better and better. With almost no time trialling, the course suits him well so he could turn out to be a dark horse.

The Yates brothers, Louis Meintjes and Tim Wellens won’t be concerned with the GC and so are unlikely to be in contention. Michal Kwiatkowski has had horrible build-up to the race and even though he is hugely talented, his climbing skills don’t seem to be good enough to ever become a real grand tour contender.

*** Nairo Quintana

** Thibaut Pinot

* Romain Bardet, Wilco Kelderman

Jokers: Eduardo Sepulveda, Warren Barguil