Garmin-Sahrp manager Jonathan Vaughters thinks that it will now be very difficult for anyone other than Vincenzo Nibali to win the Tour de France. Nibali grabbed the jersey by just 2 seconds on stage 2 and has built his lead, with his next GC challenger being Kwiatkowski at 50 seconds in fourth overall, and his next proven contender is Jurgen van den Broeck, fifth at 1:45.

"He is obviously riding better than he has the rest of the year. From appearances, it seems like he is in a much better state than he was earlier in the year,” Vaughters said

"I think those two minutes are hard to bring back. I think he will be able to control the race. He won the Giro d'Italia last year, that wasn't just pure luck."

Nibali’s biggest disadvantage is the fact that should he win the Tour, his team will have had to defend the jersey for 19 days, something that would take an immense toll on himself and his team.

 But his manager, Alexandre Vinokourov thinks that holding the jersey for so long will not pose too much of a problem to his Astana team.

"It's not a problem at all to have the yellow jersey so early in the race,” he said. "For some riders it's too much pressure to handle, but not for Vincenzo. It's clear that he is the big favourite of the Tour.”

Should Nibali win, he would become only the sixth man in history to have won all three Grand Tours and the second man in the current peloton to do so, after Alberto Contador.