2017 Vuelta a Espana: Final Rosters

With the 2017 Vuelta a Espana starting in just five days on August 19, final rosters are being announced. As with the long lists article, we’ll update this one as more announcements come across our desk.

AG2R-La Mondiale:

Romain Bardet will make his debut at the Vuelta after a solid showing at the Tour de France.

“After having had a very full Tour de France, both from a sporting and psychological point of view, I took time to reflect on the rest of the season,” Bardet said. “For several months I have been considering the possibility of competing in the Vuelta a Espana, and after speaking with the general management of the team as well as the staff, they have reinforced this idea as an option for me.
I am very happy to have a chance to participate in the Vuelta, not only as a way to avoid the monotony of a usual program, but also to compete in two Grand Tours in one season for the first time in my career.

“This is an important step in the life as a professional racer, and I feel that I have the maturity to tackle it. My ambitions will be different from those that I had when I went to the Tour de France this year, but with a high-performance team, I hope to figure prominently in those stages that correspond to my strengths.”

Team manager Vincent Lavenau feels that Bardet is up to the challenge of a Tour-Vuelta double.

“Romain proved at the Tour de France and throughout the season that he has reached a physical maturity which allows him to compete in two Grand Tours in the same season. This is a logical progression in his career, even if double Grand Tours a season will not necessarily become the norm in future years. His condition at the end of the Tour will allow him to approach the Vuelta with confidence. We will line up at the Vuelta with a very good team and have several riders who will be able to play a large role in the overall standings as well as during individual stages.”

Riders:

• Romain Bardet
• Domenico Pozzovivo
• Alexandre Geniez
• Axel Domont
• Alexis Gougeard
• Hugo Houle
• Clement Chevrier
• Julien Duval
• Nico Denz

Bahrain Merida Pro Cycling Team:

2010 Vuelta winner Vincenzo Nibali will return to Spain with the Bahrain Merida team to contest the 2017 edition of the race.

“I’ve worked hard and I’m ready for this new challenge,” said Nibali. “The route is very demanding but overall I like it

“Competition is really strong,” he continued. “and seeing the ranking minimum gaps of Giro d’Italia and Tour de France you can not be distracted even for a moment. So many climbs, but also Navarra Circuit’s time trial with more of 40 kilometers can be decisive”.

• Valerio Agnoli
• Manuele Boaro
• Ivan Cortina
• Javier Moreno
• Antonio Nibali
• Vincenzo Nibali
• Domen Novak
• Franco Pellizotti
• Giovanni Visconti

BMC Racing Team:

BMC Racing Team will back a strong and experienced team at the Vuelta a España when racing gets underway on Saturday, 19 August.

Sports Director Yvon Ledanois said the team has multiple objectives at the third Grand Tour of the season.

“We are lining up at the Vuelta a España with one of the strongest rosters we have named in recent years. As a result, we have a number of different goals for the race. To start with, the Team Time Trial in Nimes is a big objective for us. Team Time Trials are always an important discipline for BMC Racing Team, but here at the Vuelta a España, a good result means starting the three-week race with good morale and motivation, and potentially the leader’s jersey,” Ledanois explained.

“For the General Classification, we have a number of riders who can be up there, including Tejay van Garderen, Nicolas Roche and Samuel Sánchez. These riders are very motivated for a good result overall so we will take things day by day and see how the race plays out.

• Damiano Caruso
• Alessandro De Marchi
• Rohan Dennis
• Kilian Frankiny
• Daniel Oss
• Nicolas Roche
• Samuel Sánchez
• Tejay van Garderen
• Francisco Ventoso

BORA-hansgrohe:

Rafal Majka will be lead BORA – hansgrohe supported by strong climbers like Buchmann, Konrad and Poljanski. Michael Schwarzmann will be BORA – hansgrohe’s men for the sprints.

“I think we have a well-balanced squad to support Rafal but also to go for stage wins. Rafal will be our GC leader with the goal to finish in the top five. But we also want to win a stage, and I think there will be chances for Buchmann and Konrad in some stages.” – Ralph Denk, Team Manager

Riders:

• Cesare Benedetti
• Emanuel Buchmann
• Michael Kolar
• Patrick Konrad
• Rafal Majka
• Christoph Pfingsten
• Pawel Poljanski
• Andreas Schillinger
• Michael Schwarzmann

Cannondale-Drapac Cycling Team:

Cannondale-Drapac takes a rookie team to the 2017 Vuelta a España. With four riders making their Grand Tour debut and another starting his first Vuelta, there are plenty of new experiences on offer for the squad in Spain (and France and Andorra). The team clad in green will be led by Basque sport director Juanma Garate in cooperation with Tom Southam.

“The average age in our team is 27 years. It’s probably not the youngest team at the start, but I think we do bring the team with the most rookies,” said Garate. “Not only do we have four riders racing their first Grand Tour, but we have another two riders who have only ever done one Grand Tour in their careers.

“We want to continue with the attitude that we showed as a team during this season, specifically in the Giro and the Tour,” Garate added. “Of course we don’t have high GC ambitions, but we do want to win a stage as we did in the Giro and the Tour de France.”

Riders:

• Mike Woods
• Simon Clarke
• Davide Villella
• Will Clarke
• Joe Dombrowski
• Tom Scully
• Brendan Canty
• Tom Van Asbroeck
• Ton Skujins

Team Dimension Data:

Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka announce a lineup of climbers for the 72nd edition of the Vuelta a Espana.

After a strong showing at the Tour de France this year, Serge Pauwels will lead the African Team come Saturday together with the Basque climbing duo of Omar Fraile and Igor Anton. Pauwels and Anton will be able to target the most difficult of climbing stages while Fraile will adopt a similar attacking strategy to that which has won him the King of the Mountains jersey at the last two editions of this race.

Riders:

• Merwahi Kudus
• Jacques Janse van Rensburg
• Youcef Reguigui
• Igor Anton
• Serge Pauwels
• Omar Fraile
• Lachlan Morton
• Ben King
• Nick Dougall

Katusha – Alpecin:

• Ilnur Zakarin
• Maxim Belkov
• Sven Erik Bystrøm
• José Gonçalves,
• Marco Haller
• Alberto Losad
• Matvey Mamykin
• Michael Mørkøv
• Rein Taaramäe

Lotto-Soudal:

Lotto Soudal has already announced their squad for the Vuelta:

• Sander Armée
• Bart De Clercq
• Thomas De Gendt
• Jens Debusschere
• Tomasz Marczynski
• Rémy Mertz
• Maxime Monfort
• Rafael Valls
• Jelle Wallays.

It will be the third participation for Rafael Valls (30) in the biggest race of his country. Also for Jens Debusschere, who celebrates his 28th birthday during the Vuelta, it’s the third Vuelta of his career. His fellow countryman Maxime Monfort (34) is more experienced, he takes part for the seventh time. Rémy Mertz (22) is making his Grand Tour début. Jelle Wallays (28) did the same in last year’s Vuelta and he is part of the line-up again. Bart De Clercq, who turns 31 on 26 August, crashed in last year’s sixth stage and had to let go of his ambitions. He gets new opportunities in his sixth Vuelta. Sander Armée (31) returns to the Vuelta too. Just like for Tomasz Marczynski (33) this will be his third Vuelta. Thomas De Gendt (30) can get ready to join breakaways, he is riding the Vuelta for the fifth time.

It’s remarkable that Adam Hansen is not part of the line-up, after eighteen consecutive Grand Tours.

Marc Sergeant, sports manager Lotto Soudal: “Adam was suffering from saddle sore at the Tour. There are less than four weeks between the end of the Tour and the start of the Vuelta. After less than two weeks the injury is healing, but has not disappeared, so the staff fears the injury might play up again during the Vuelta. At the moment Adam hasn’t resumed training yet, so that means the preparation would be really short too. With the sporting goals in mind too, the staff decided not to select him. It’s true that Adam has set a fantastic record, but we knew that would come to an end sooner or later.”

Movistar:

The Movistar Team has defined its nine-man selection for the 2017 Vuelta a España. The Movistar Team will reach southern France on Wednesday to start preparing for the opening, 13.7-kilometer TTT on Saturday.

Riders:

• Jorge Arcas
• Carlos Betancur
• Richard Carapaz
• Rubén Fernández
• Dani Moreno
• Nelson Oliveira
• Antonio Pedrero
• José Joaquín Rojas
• Marc Soler

ORICA-SCOTT:

ORICA-SCOTT will start the final Grand Tour of the 2017 season, the Vuelta a Espana, with another firm focus on a general classification result.

The Australian outfit will line up at the Spanish three-week race with two overall hopefuls in 2016 Tour de France white jersey Adam Yates and last year’s Vuelta podium placer Esteban Chaves.

The 2017 Vuelta a Espana will be the first time ORICA-SCOTT’s trio of young general classification riders will race a Grand Tour together and the first time the Yates brothers will race two three-week races in a single season.

Sport director Neil Stephens said the combination was an exciting prospect and set a positive challenge for the team.

“We have the best general classification riders we can put together, we have all three of them here, and that is going to be a bit of a challenge,” Stephens acknowledged.

“It’s an exciting challenge for us all to focus on, but at the end of the day the team is our leader and all three riders have always fully committed to that.

• Sam Bewley
• Esteban Chaves
• Magnus Cort
• Jack Haig
• Chris Juul-Jensen
• Svein Tuft
• Carlos Verona
• Adam Yates
• Simon Yates

Quick Step Floors:

The only Spaniard to wear the coveted red jersey at the previous edition of the Vuelta a España, David De La Cruz will return to his home race this year as part of a very strong Quick-Step Floors squad ready to take on the season’s final Grand Tour and stick to its aggressive and spectacular style of racing, which earned plaudits and netted over 40 victories since January. The 28-year-old, a stage winner in 2017 at Paris-Nice and Vuelta al Pais Vasco, will be motivated to show his prowess on the mountains and leave again his mark on the general classification.

Winner of back-to-back white jerseys in the Giro d’Italia, Bob Jungels is slated to start the grueling Spanish race three years after making his Grand Tour debut here and notching up two stage top-10 finishes; if the 24-year-old Luxembourger will ride his second three-week race of the season, the same can’t be said about Julian Alaphilippe, who gets to ride his first Grand Tour this year, after a knee injury kept him out of the Tour de France.

The team will be rounded out by Eros Capecchi, Tim Declercq, Belgian ITT Champion Yves Lampaert, neo-pro Enric Mas (confidence-buoyed after climbing to second overall at the Vuelta a Burgos earlier this month), Niki Terpstra – the most experienced rider of our Vuelta a España roster in terms of Grand Tour participations, with 11 presences under his belt – and Matteo Trentin.

Riders:

• Julian Alaphilippe (FRA)
• Eros Capecchi (ITA)
• David De La Cruz Melgarejo (ESP)
• Tim Declercq (BEL)
• Bob Jungels (LUX)
• Yves Lampaert (BEL)
• Enric Mas (ESP)
• Niki Terpstra (NED)
• Matteo Trentin (ITA)

Team Sky:

Chris Froome says that he has ‘unfinished business’ at the Vuelta a Espana, where he returns aiming to become just the third rider to win both the Vuelta and Tour de France in the same season.

There will be a strong Team Sky lineup when the race kicks off with a team time trial in Nimes on Saturday 19 August:

• Chris Froome
• Wout Poels
• Mikel Nieve
• Diego Rosa
• David Lopez
• Gianni Moscon
• Salvatore Puccio
• Ian Stannard
• Christian Knees

Four-time Tour de France champion Froome says that the team’s approach to this year’s Vuelta has given him reason to be optimistic about his chances of back-to-back Grand Tour victories.

“It certainly feels as if I’ve got unfinished business with this race. I’ve finished second three times now, but I’ve got a good feeling about this year’s Vuelta. It feels like we’re on much more of a mission this year, and aiming for the Tour/Vuelta double this season has been a huge motivation.

“I don’t think we’ve been to the Vuelta a Espana with a team as strong as we’ve got this year.”

Team Sunweb:

A strong nine-rider line-up has been selected with an eye on the future, as well as to support Team Sunweb’s exploration of GC possibilities. The Vuelta a España will have five Grand Tour debutants in Team Sunweb’s line-up; including Søren Kragh Andersen (DEN), Chris Hamilton (AUS), Lennard Hofstede (NED), Lennard Kämna (GER) and Sam Oomen (NED). Next to their contributions to the team’s goal, the focus will be on the long-term development of these talented riders. The extremely young team will be complemented by experienced road captain Johannes Fröhlinger (GER) as well as climber Warren Barguil (FRA), who won two stages in the 2013 Vuelta and more recently the KOM jersey at this year’s Tour de France. A key member of the team’s successful Giro d’Italia squad, Chad Haga (USA) completes the team alongside Wilco Kelderman (NED).

Riders:

• Søren Kragh Andersen (DEN)
• Warren Barguil (FRA)
• Johannes Fröhlinger (GER)
• Chad Haga (USA)
• Chris Hamilton (AUS)
• Lennard Hofstede (NED)
• Lennard Kämna (GER)
• Wilco Kelderman (NED)
• Sam Oomen (NED)

UAE Team Emirates:

The UAE Team Emirates has defined its 2017 Vuelta a España.

“We have a good team, all the guys are in good form,” says sports director Simone Pedrazzini “The team’s captains will be Louis Meintjes and Rui Costa, who are aiming to get a final Top Ten, while they will be relying on Darwin Atapuma and Jan Polanc for the mountain stages and Sacha Modolo for the sprints, they will all be trying to get a stage win”.

• Anass Ait El Abdia
• Darwin Atapuma
• Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa
• Louis Meintjes
• Sacha Modolo
• Mataj Mohoric
• Przemyslaw Niemiec
• Jan Polanc
• Federico Zurlo