The two-time Tour de France winner will be supported by Sergio Henao, Mikel Landa, Michal Kwiatkowski and Wout Poels in the mountains.
Luke Rowe, Ian Stannard, and Salvartore Puccio make up the rest of the eight-man team. The race starts on Sunday with a 3.9-kilometre uphill prologue and concludes the following weekend after three consecutive days in the mountains. Froome’s major rivals for the race include Alberto Contador (Tinkoff), Fabio Aru (Astana), and his former Sky teammate, Richie Porte (BMC Racing).
The squad contains considerable firepower in the mountains although both Henao and Landa are relatively late inclusions. Landa had targeted the Giro d’Italia after finishing on the podium in 2015 but the Spaniard fell ill on the second rest day and was forced to abandon. He is in contention for a spot in Team Sky’s Tour de France team.
Henao was only recently cleared by the UCI after being benched from racing – by his team – due to anomalies with his Biological Passport. It was the second time in his career that Team Sky had withdrawn him from competition.
Froome and the core of the Dauphiné team have spent time training at altitude in a bid to prepare for the upcoming event.
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