2017 Vuelta a Espana teams confirmed

The Tour of Spain begins this Saturday August 19th in Nimes. The favorites include Chris Froome, Alberto Contador, Vincenzo Nibali, Fabio Aru and Romain Bardet

This Saturday will see the start of the 72nd edition of the Tour of Spain with 22 teams in action, 18 WorldTour plus the four invites; Aqua Blue Sport, Caja Rural-RGA, Cofidis and Manzana Postobon.

They all have announced their teams, ready to reach their goals from the start in Nimes, France until the arrival in Madrid on the September 10th, after 21 stages, featuring nine summit finishes, a team and individual time trial and brutal ascents of the Sierra Nevada and Angliru.

This year's route, again over the traditional 21 stages, is marginally longer and will see the peloton clock up 3,298 km (2,049 miles).

Riders will begin in France with a team time trial in the city of Nimes and then ride to French town Gruissan on the coast on day two before dipping into Spain and ending the third stage in Andorra.

They will then leave the tiny country in the Pyrenees again and enter Spain for the rest of the race. The route takes in the Mediterrenan coast as far south as the Sierra Nevada before hopping across Spain to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean for five stages.

Five mountain stages feature on the route, including the Alto de l’Angliru as well as the extraordinary Los Machucos, Monumento Vaca Pasiega, before the finish in the Spanish capital of Madrid.

You can follow the 2017 Vuelta a Espana LIVE on granfondoguide.com.

2017 Vuelta a Espana Map

AG2R La Mondiale

Romain Bardet, Clement Chevrier, Nico Denz, Julien Duval, Alexandre Geniez, Alexis Gougeard, Hugo Houle, Mateo Montaguti y Domenico Pozzovivo.

Aqua Blue Sport

Adam Blythe, Mark Christian, Stefan Denifl, Conor Dunne, Aaron Gate, Lasse Norman Hansen, Peter Koning, Michel Kreder, Larry Warbasse

Astana

Fabio Aru, Miguel Ángel López, Luis León Sánchez, Pello Bilbao, Sergey Chernetskiy, Laurens de Vreese, Jesper Hansen, Alexey Lutsenko y Nikita Stalnov.

Bahrain-Merida

Vincenzo Nibali, Valerio Agnoli, Manuele Boaro, Iván García Cortina, Javi Moreno, Antonio Nibali, Domen Novak, Franco Pellizotti y Giovanni Visconti.

BMC Racing Team

Samuel Sánchez, Damiano Caruso, Alessandro De Marchi, Rohan Dennis, Kilian Frankiny, Daniel Oss, Nicholas Roche, Tejay Van Garderen, Francisco Ventoso.

Bora-hansgrohe

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

Caja Rural-RGA

Sergio Pardilla, Jaime Rosón, David Arroyo, Lluís Mas, Fabricio Ferrari, Rafael Reis, Nick Schultz, Diego Rubio y Héctor Sáez.

Cofidis Solutions Credit

Dani Navarro, Guillaume Bonnafond, Luis Ángel Maté, Anthony Pérez, Stéphane Rossetto, Anthony Turgis, Jimmy Turgis, Kenneth Vanbilsen, Jonas Van Genechten.

FDJ

Arnaud Courteille, Odd Cristian Eikin, Marc Fournier, Daniel Hoelgaard, Johan Le Bon, Tobias Ludvigsson, Jérémy Maison, Lorenzo Manzin y Anthony Roux.

Katusha-Alpecin

Ilnur Zakarin, Maxim Belkov, Sven Erik Bystrom, José Gonçalves, Marco Haller, Alberto Losada, Matvey Mamykin, Michael Morkov, Rein Taaramae.

Lotto-Soudal

Jens Debusschere, Adam Hansen, Maxime Monfort, Rémy Mertz, Jelle Wallays, Bart De Clercq, Sander Armée, Tomasz Marczynski and Thomas De Gendt.

Lotto NL-Jumbo

Steven Kruijswijk, George Bennet, Koen Bouwman, Stef Clement, Floris De Tier, Bertjan Lindemann, Juanjo Lobato, Daan Olivier y Antwan Tolhoek.

Manzana Postobón

Hernán Aguirre, Hernando Bohórquez, Jetse Bol, Sebastián Molano, Fernando Orjuela, Juan Felipe Osorio, Aldemar Reyes, Bernardo Suaza, Ricardo Vilela

Movistar Team

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

Orica-Scott

Esteban Chaves, Simon Yates, Adam Yates, Sam Bewley, Magnus Cort Nielsen, Jack Haig, Christopher Juul-Jensen, Svein Tuft, Carlos Verona.

QuickStep

David de la Cruz, Julian Alaphilippe, Bob Jungels, Eros Capecchi, Tim Declercq, Yves Lampaert, Enric Mas, Niki Terpstra, Matteo Trentin.

Team Dimension Data

Omar Fraile, Igor Antón, Merhawi Kudus, Jacques Janse van Rensburg, Youcef Reguigui, Serge Pauwels, Lachlan Morton, Ben King, Nic Dougall.

Team Sunweb

Warren Barguil, Wilco Kelderman, Soren Kragh Andersen, Johannes Fröhlinger, Chad Haga, Chris Hamilton, Lennard Hofstede, Lennard Kämna y Sam Oomen.