As the days count down to the start of the Tour de France on July 2, more and more teams are announcing their final nine-rider line-ups for the race.
Team Sky will confirm their squad in a media event in Kew Gardens in London on Thursday. Several British riders from the team will be present and the team is expected to unveil a special jersey and bike design for the Tour de France.
The riders were spotted riding green and black Pinarello bikes at a recent training camp in the French Alps and the new jersey is expected to promote the Sky rainforest rescue programme that the team promoted during the 2010 Tour of Britain.
Movistar reveal 11-rider long list for the Tour de France
The Spanish Movistar team will wait until after this weekend’s many national championships before finalising its final nine-rider team for the Tour de France. On Wednesday the Spanish team issued an 11-rider long list of those under consideration.
The 11 are: Andrey Amador, David Arroyo, Rui Costa, Imanol Erviti, Iván Gutiérrez, Beñat Intxausti, Vasil Kiryienka, Ángel Madrazo, José Joaquín Rojas, Branislau Samoilau and Fran Ventoso.
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Tour de France team presentation
This year’s Tour de France begins with a 191.5km road race stage from the Passage du Gois to Mont des Alouettes on Saturday July 2. However the Grand Depart begins two days before that with the official team presentation on Thursday afternoon.
This year the team presentation will be held at the Puy du Fou theme park near the Mont des Alouettes. According to the Tour de France organisers the presentation will be held in a fake Roman arena.
Teams heading to the Vendée early for TTT reconnaissance
Several of the teams riding this year’s Tour de France will head to the Vendee region of Western France as early as Tuesday to train on the stage two team time trial course.
“The team time trial is not technically difficult but we don’t want to leave anything to chance. Without a doubt the team time trial will be important for the first week of the race,” Omega Pharma-Lotto team manager Marc Sergeant told Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure.
Philippe Gilbert will lead the Omega Pharma-Lotto team Tour de France with Jurgen Van den Broeck. Gilbert is expected to target the uphill finishes on stage one and stage four and so a good performance in the team time trial could help him wear the race leader’s yellow jersey for several days.
Katusha heads to France without Porsev
Alexander Porsev, one of the riders on the Katusha team's roster for the Tour de France, crashed badly in the Halle Ingooigem in Belgium today and will not be able to make his Grand Tour debut.
The 26-year-old Russian suffered a concussion, a broken nose and two broken teeth in the fall. He will remain in Belgium for surgery over the next few days.
