With the Tour of Britain just a week away, all sixteen teams have now confirmed their riders to contest the six-day stage race from Glasgow to The Mall in London.
The Brit Pack
The Great Britain team was the final team to be confirmed, and will include one of Lance Armstrong’s former team mates, Roger Hammond as part of the strongest line up of teams and riders that the Tour of Britain has ever seen. Hammond won stage two of the Tour of Britain last year and features in a team of British riders from British Cycling¹s Olympic Academy Programme. Included are Cardiff’s World Championship silver medallists, Geraint Thomas and nineteen year old Ross Sander. Former world junior champion Andrew Tennant from Wolverhampton, Chelmsford’s Ian Stannard and Sheffield’s Ben Swift make up the rest of the Great Britain team. The latter three riders are nineteen years of age and offer strong prospects for Beijing. Another of Britain’s young talented riders to take the start line of the Tour of Britain will be Mark Cavendish, 21. The Commonwealth Gold medal winner from the Isle of Man will ride with T-Mobile’s Tour de France podium finisher Andreas Kloden.
Great Britain Team
Roger Hammond
Andrew Tennant
Geraint Thomas
Ross Sander
Ian Stannard
Ben Swift
Last week Kloden won the Regio-Tour in Germany with Cavendish and the in form T-Mobile team in support. Team mate and world time trial champion Michael Rodgers was runner up in the same race and will feature as another of the highlights during the Tour of Britain. The field of 96 riders will include world road race champion Tom Boonen, who last week won three stages of the Tour of Benelux and will ride in the QuickStep-Innergetic team with defending Tour of Britain champion Nick Neyens.
Axel Merckx, son on legendary Tour de France winner Eddy, will ride with the Phonak iShares team. Olympic Champion Luke Roberts will ride with team CSC and his Australian compatriot Baden Cook will ride with the Unibet team. Seventeen nations are represented in this year¹s Tour of Britain.
Tony Doyle from the Tour of Britain commented:
“This is the strongest line up we¹ve ever had at the Tour of Britain and we¹re delighted to see so many talented British riders on the start list this year. I think we can expect some of the bigger professional teams attempt to set the pace right from the start. Team tactics will be hugely important.”
