The Tour of the Alps has secured the presence of 12 WorldTour teams for the 2021 race, with Simon Yates ( Team BikeExchange), Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) and perhaps Giro d’Italia winner Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) all set to ride the five-day stage race in the Italian-Austrian Euro region.
The Tour of Alps was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 coronavirus race cancellations in the spring but returns in 2021 between April 19-23 and is again considered a perfect springboard towards the Giro d’Italia in May.
The mountainous 716km route will start with a stage between Bressanone and Innsbruck, with the final stage ending on the edge of Lake Garda in Italy after 13,000 metres of climbing across the five stages.
Pavel Sivakov won the 2019 Tour of the Alps, with his teammate Geoghegan Hart winning two stages and finishing second overall. The British team has confirmed it will be back in 2021. World time trial champion Filippo Ganna will be part of the squad, with Geoghegan Hart highly likely to be present, too.
“I’m excited at some point in my career to come back to the Tour of the Alps, I’d like to win it, to close that circle. Everyone knows I quite like round things…” Geoghegan Hart said, indicating his personal circle symbol tattooed on his arm in a video message.
“I wouldn’t ever imagined how life would change as it has, when I won at the Tour of the Alps but at the same time, that’s the beauty of life, you never know what’s coming around the corner and you never know what’s coming around a corner in a race, too. I didn’t expect to win that day or the next day. I have beautiful memories with my teammate Pavel to get first and second.”
Trek-Segafredo confirmed that Vincenzo Nibali will ride the 2021 Tour of the Alps, as will his Giro rivals Pinot, Simon Yates and Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech). Emanuel Buchmann will lead Bora-Hansgrohe, while Israel Start-Up Nation, Qhubeka-Assos and Bahrain Victorious all on the start list, meaning Chris Froome, Fabio Aru and Mikel Landa could also be in the race.
Completing the 12 WorldTour teams are UAE Team Emirates, EF Education-Nippo and Movistar.
Eight ProTeams have been invited: Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec, Bardiani-CSF-Faizané, Vini Zabù-Brado-KTM and Eolo-Kometa - the new ProTeam of Ivan Basso and Alberto Contador, plus Gazprom-Rusvelo, Arkéa-Samsic, Caja Rural-Seguros and Norway’s Uno-X Pro Cycling Team.
The Austrian Continental Tirol KTM Cycling Team and an Italian National Team complete the 22-team start list.
Cyclingnews will have full coverage of the 2021 Tour of the Alps, with live updates, news and interviews during the five stages.
