As the 2024 Tour de France rolls out from Florence, Italy on June 29, there will be 176 riders competing across 22 teams – some with a target on overall victory, others looking for stage wins and more still pleased with any opportunity that comes along their way to gather publicity on the biggest cycling stage in the world.
All 18 WorldTour teams, plus the two best-ranked ProTeams – Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto-Dstny – got their automatic invitations to race while organisers ASO handed out wild card entries to Uno-X Mobility and TotalEnergies.
Crashes, form and Olympic goals have shaped the selections and ambitions for the teams but regardless all will be fighting to make an impression as the 21 days of racing over 3497.3km from Tuscany to Nice in the south of France unfolds.
Cyclingnews has pored through every squad, assessing their leaders, objectives and chances of success to bring you this comprehensive team-by-team guide.
Alpecin-Deceuninck
- Team leader: Jasper Philipsen
- Objective: Stage wins, points classification
- Rider to watch: Mathieu van der Poel
In the bunch sprints of the Grand Tours of recent years, one team has stood out above the rest as masters of the lead-out train: Alpecin-Deceuninck.
They were a prominent presence throughout the bunch finishes at the recent Giro d’Italia, but Kaden Groves wasn’t able to ride them to victory. However, at the Tour de France, the team will have Jasper Philipsen, the quickest sprinter in the peloton.
Philipsen was one of the stars of last year’s Tour, storming to four stage wins (as many as any sprinter has managed at a single Tour since the 2011 edition), as well as riding consistently enough to claim the green jersey. He didn't slow down this spring, either, with victories at Milan-San Remo and the Classic Brugge-De Panne, as well as a second place at Paris-Roubaix, among his very impressive results.
Not only is Philipsen the quickest sprinter in the race, but he’ll also have the quickest lead-out man riding for him in Mathieu van der Poel. The pair work brilliantly together, as seen not just at last year’s Tour sprints, but also during the spring, when Van der Poel helped Philipsen to triumph at Milan-San Remo, and vice versa at Paris-Roubaix.
Van der Poel will also go hunting for stage wins on appropriate stages, most likely on days with punchy parcours too hard for sprinters but not hard enough for climbers. For a man so untouchable in the Classics, it’s perhaps surprising that he only has one stage win to his name from three Tour appearances, but he has often ridden here with a future goal in mind, as will be the case this year as he builds towards the Olympics.
Arkéa-B&B Hotels
- Team leader: Arnaud Démare
- Objective: Stage wins
- Rider to watch: Kévin Vauquelin
With Warren Barguil having followed Nairo Quintana out the door, Arkéa-B&B Hotels are going in a fresh direction for the 2024 Tour with sprinter Arnaud Démare as their new talisman.
Having grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of opportunities provided him by his former Groupama-FDJ team, who selected him for only one Tour de France start in the last five years, Démare has moved to a team where he won’t just be picked but will command unified support behind him.
It’s hoped that as a winner of two Tour stages in the past, Démare can deliver the team their long-awaited first-ever following ten winless Tours, but does the Frenchman have the shape to do so? He hasn’t made the top ten of any race for almost four months, and recently fractured a finger at the 4 Jours de Dunkerque, plunging his Tour preparations into doubt.
It could therefore be up to others in the line-up to deliver, from which Kévin Vauquelin has shown particular potential. The 23-year-old has done everything this year, from making the top 10 at both Itzulia Basque Country and Tirreno-Adriatico, finishing second on the Mur de Huy at La Flèche Wallonne and winning a time trial at Etoile de Bessèges. He could be a contender for a variety of different stages though specialises in climbing hills and mountains.
Astana Qazaqstan
- Team leader: Mark Cavendish
- Objective: Stage wins
- Rider to watch: Alexey Lutsenko
At last, it's nearly time for the race that Astana Qazaqstan's whole season has been building up towards.
Since signing Mark Cavendish in January 2023, they've made it their foremost mission to deliver the Manxman to the elusive win number 35, move clear of Eddy Merckx, and thereby become the outright record holder for most stage wins at the Tour de France.
It had initially been intended as a one-year plan, but after the heartbreak of last year’s race, where Cavendish crashed out at the end of the first week, he and the team have decided to have one last shot at history this July.
Unlike last year, when he went into the Tour off the back of a final-day victory in Rome at the Giro d’Italia, Cavendish has shown only sporadic signs of form this season, confined to smaller races. He won a stage during his first race of the season at the Tour of Colombia in February but had to wait another three months for a first victory on European roads at the Tour of Hongrie. His recent participation at the Tour de Suisse was mainly to sharpen his climbing form ahead of the Tour de France.
The Astana team is set to be built entirely around him. Veteran lead-out master Michael Mørkøv was signed exclusively to deliver him in the sprints, while Cees Bol and Davide Ballerini will sacrifice their own sprinting ambitions to form part of his lead-out train.
One rider who might be granted some freedom to ride for himself is Alexey Lutsenko. He showed great form by winning Il Giro d’Abruzzo before abandoning the Giro d’Italia and finishing seventh and eighth on GC in 2021 and 2022, respectively. He has two Tour de France GC top 10s, as well as a stage win in 2020, on his palmarès, so another top showing isn't out of the question.
Bahrain Victorious
- Team leaders: Pello Bilbao
- Objective: GC, stage wins
- Riders to watch: Santiago Buitrago, Matej Mohorič
What Bahrain Victorious lacks in a single stand-out GC contender, they make up for in strength in depth. Following Antonio Tiberi’s fifth place at the Giro d’Italia, they’re hoping to extend their run of top-six finishes on GC to a fifth consecutive Grand Tour and have several riders potentially capable of doing so.
Their best candidate is Pello Bilbao, based on his performance at the Tour last year and in stage races so far in 2024. He was sixth place last year and has been building nicely towards that level again this year with sixth-place finishes at Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and Itzulia Basque Country, plus third at the UAE Tour in between. He was also second overall at the Tour of Slovenia, and while the field was not the same level as what he will face at the Tour de France, the results undoubtedly helped to build confidence.
Santiago Buitrago is poised to make his Tour debut. He brings with him considerable expectations off the back of his stage wins and top-ten finish at the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España, respectively, as well as his impressive showing at Paris-Nice earlier this year.
It’s also hoped that Jack Haig can rediscover some form ahead of the race, while even veteran Wout Poels could post a high GC finish based on his recent third and sixth-place finishes at the Tour de Hongrie and Tour of the Alps, respectively.
Poels and Bilbao were two of the three different riders to win a stage at last year’s Tour, along with Matej Mohorič, who will again be using his nous and engine to target breakaways. The Slovenian has three Tour stage wins on his career palmarès, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see him add another win here.
With Phil Bauhaus, a debutant last summer, also posing a threat in the bunch sprints, Bahrain Victorious has the resources to target a win on almost every stage.
Cofidis
- Team leaders: Guillaume Martin
- Objective: Stage wins
- Riders to watch: Bryan Coquard, Ion Izagirre.
For the first time in many years, Cofidis can go into a Tour de France without being badgered about questions of whether this will be the year they at last manage to claim a stage win.
By triumphing on stage 2 of last year’s edition, Victor Lafay ended the team’s 15-year drought, and then Ion Izagirre added another stage a week later.
Lafay has since left for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, but Izagirre remains and is set to ride, with stage wins on hilly and mountainous days again likely to be the target.
Guillaume Martin will ride his eighth consecutive Tour de France and will be the team’s leading GC hope. He’s placed eighth, 10th, 11th and 12th in past appearances but has never won a stage, so he may prioritise trying to take one from a breakaway. He recently finished 19th overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné with a top 10 in a stage, but will be aiming to improve on that at the Tour.
Bryan Coquard is another rider without a Tour stage win to his name despite many near misses, including a couple of fourth-place finishes last year. He’ll be the team’s man for the bunch sprints, especially on hillier days that weaken the specialists.
While these riders bring experience, 25-year-old Axel Zingle has form and potential. He’s been consistently in contention for multiple semi-Classics over the last few months and could win from a breakaway if he picks the right move.
Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale
- Team leader: Felix Gall
- Objective: GC, stage wins
- Rider to watch: Sam Bennett, Benoît Cosnefroy
In the middle of an exceptional season, in which they have already racked up more victories than they managed in the last two seasons combined, expectations are high for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale as they head into the biggest race of the year.
Although the men who delivered stage wins (Valentin Paret-Peintre and Andrea Vendrame) and fourth overall (Ben O’Connor) at the Giro d’Italia will sit this one out as they rest and recover, the core of the other names who have made 2024 such a success are set to be present.
Benoît Cosnefroy has been the team’s biggest contributor with seven of their 23 wins (as of the end of May) and will target the hilly stages, while Dorion Godon will be a candidate in reduced bunch sprints, having won two sprint finishes at the Tour de Romandie in late April.
In the pure flat finishes, Sam Bennett will still be their main candidate, having recently shown signs of returning to form with a haul of wins and GC at the 4 Jours de Dunkerque.
Felix Gall might have had a quieter season to date, but he'll still be the team’s main man for the mountains and their GC candidate, and is looking to be on target with a 10th overall at the Tour de Suisse. He finished eighth overall last year after breaking through with a series of good performances in the spring, while he'll also be hoping to replicate his breakaway stage win at Courchevel.
DSM-Firmenich PostNL
- Team leader: Fabio Jakobsen, Romain Bardet
- Objective: Stage wins
- Rider to watch: Warren Barguil
For the Tour de France, DSM-Firmenich PostNL are making the unusual move of deploying the same two leaders as they did at the Giro d’Italia.
In the bunch sprints, Fabio Jakobsen will again line up as he continues to rediscover his mojo. The Dutchman still only has one win to his name (at the Tour of Turkey) since signing for the team this year, and he failed to get involved in the Giro bunch sprints before abandoning during the second week. However, the team still retains faith that he can reach the level that saw him win a stage on his Tour debut two years ago.
Romain Bardet fared better at the Giro than Jakobsen, finishing ninth overall while coming close to a stage win on Bocca della Selva. Though he has made the top 10 in all but two of the eight Tours he has finished throughout his career, his excursions in Italy may mean he targets stage wins this time instead.
With 11 wins to their name – including just one WorldTour race and only three outside the Tour of Turkey – DSM need some big results. That means that another French climber, Warren Barguil, will likely be given the freedom to attack and get into breakaways.
EF Education-EasyPost
- Team leader: Richard Carapaz
- Objective: GC, stage wins
- Rider to watch: Neilson Powless, Ben Healy
Last season was the first in EF Education-Easy Post’s 16-year history that they did not place a rider in the top 10 of any of the Grand Tours. That run continued at the Giro d’Italia last month, where they aggressively targeted stage wins rather than GC via constant attacks, and were eventually rewarded in the final week with success from Georg Steinhauser in the Dolomites.
Nevertheless, they intend to strive to finish as high as possible at the Tour with Richard Carapaz as their leader. The 2021 podium finisher and 2019 Giro champion was signed in 2023 to do precisely that but he endured an under-par season last year and is only just showing signs of some form recently, with a stage win and seventh overall at the Tour de Romandie.
However, Carapaz and Alberto Bettiol were forced to abandon the recent Tour de Suisse after crashing on stage 4, but expressed that their 'goal remains the Tour de France'.
With Carapaz’s form still uncertain, there ought to be plenty of scope for the rest of the line-up to chase their own personal ambitions. Neilson Powless, for instance, could either chase GC as he did in 2023 (when he finished 12th), or stage wins and the polka-dot jersey as he did last year.
Irish puncheur Ben Healy is set to make his Tour debut, and if his Giro debut from last year and performances in the Classics are anything to go by, we can expect him to attack at every opportunity.
Alberto Bettiol’s form during the spring suggests he could add a Tour stage win to the one he managed at the 2021 Giro, while Marijn van den Berg has also earned a spot on the team thanks to his impressive early season performances.
Groupama-FDJ
- Team leader: David Gaudu
- Objective: GC, stage wins
- Rider to watch: Stefan Küng
A new dawn awaits Groupama-FDJ as they embark upon the first Tour de France of the post-Thibaut Pinot era. Before retiring at the end of last year, Pinot had been the fulcrum of the team, appearing for them in all but two of the last 12 editions — sometimes with great success, other times with great heartbreak.
David Gaudu will seek to fill the void left by Pinot, as he has for several years now. Fourth overall in 2022 remains his highest finish at any Grand Tour, and though a repeat of that looks ambitious given his stuttering form this year, he’s still dreaming of a podium finish.
If Gaudu doesn’t have the legs to mount a serious GC challenge, targeting stage wins may be the team’s optimum approach, and they have plenty of riders capable of delivering on that front.
Rising star Lenny Martinez misses the race in favour of the Vuelta a España, but 21-year-old Romain Grégoire is set to make his Tour debut on the back of some very impressive results this year, including a stage win at Itzulia Basque Country
Valentin Madouas has become a recognisable face from recent Tours without quite winning a stage, though he certainly has the talent to do so. Stefan Küng, newly crowned Swiss champion in the time trial, will, as ever, be a candidate for both the time trials as well as select breakaways.
Ineos Grenadiers
- Team leaders: Carlos Rodríguez, Egan Bernal
- Objective: GC
- Rider to watch: Tom Pidcock, Geraint Thomas
Last year was only the second time in the last decade that Ineos Grenadiers failed to put a rider on the GC podium at the Tour de France. Even since their run of yellow jersey-winning Tours came to an end in 2020, up until then they had still managed to crack the podium through Richard Carapaz (in 2021) and Geraint Thomas (in 2022), but last year their highest finisher, Carlos Rodríguez, finished further down in fifth place.
Still, that result means Rodríguez is one of the more obvious choices to lead the team’s 2024 GC bid, and the 23-year-old has bolstered his status with overall victory at the Tour de Romandie, second place behind Juan Ayuso at Itzulia Basque Country and fourth overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné.
Also in the squad are other, more wildcard options for GC. Geraint Thomas would usually be a dependable candidate, but it’s unclear how fresh he will be, having dug deep to seal third place at the Giro d’Italia.
Egan Bernal and Tom Pidcock showed Tour de France leadership form at Tour de Suisse, finishing fourth and sixth place, respectively.
Pidcock has stated that he intends to concentrate on the GC rather than stage wins, despite failing to make the top ten last year and remained in Switzerland for additional training before heading to the Grand Depart.
And Bernal, the 2019 champion, has for the first time since his horror crash two and a half years ago shown form approaching his best, with third overall at Volta a Catalunya, top tens at Paris-Nice and the Tour de Romandie, and fourth at the Tour de Suisse but it remains to be seen if he can manage a sustained GC bid over three weeks.
Michał Kwiatkowski and Laurens De Plus will be on hand to help the aforementioned trio achieve their GC goals, even if the Belgian could harbour ambitions of his own after racing to an unexpected and impressive fifth overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné.
Intermarché-Wanty
- Team leader: Biniam Girmay, Louis Meintjes
- Objective: GC, stage wins
- Rider to watch: Georg Zimmermann
Biniam Girmay returns to the Tour de France hoping for a positive turn in fortunes. So far, his season has been blighted by interruptions, with promising form in the early spring classics halted by a crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen and another crash spelling the end of his Giro d’Italia one day after finishing third in Fossano.
He’s since returned to winning ways with victory at the Circuit Franco-Belge, and looks on course to arrive at the Tour in form. As Intermarché-Wanty’s star, the onus is on the Eritrean to make an impact and he has the chance to make history as the first-ever Black African to win a stage of the Tour de France. His consistency and versatility also make him a candidate for the green jersey.
Like Girmay, who failed to show his best self at last year’s Tour, Louis Meintjes will be hoping to return to the form that saw him finish seventh overall in 2022 rather than crash out last year.
Meintjes will be the team’s GC leader, but the rest of the line-up will have the freedom to get into break and chase stage wins, much as Georg Zimmermann (who was second on stage 10) did last year. Rouleurs like Laurenz Rex and Hugo Page might fancy their chances of winning a stage this way, too.
Israel-Premier Tech
- Team leader: Stephen Williams, Derek Gee
- Objective: Stage wins
- Rider to watch: Pascal Ackermann
Israel-Premier Tech's high ambitions from 2021, when they gambled on signing Chris Froome in the hope that he could recover from his horror crash two years earlier and revive his Tour-winning form of old, have since been significantly tempered.
Now no longer a WorldTour team, they've instead depended upon a wildcard to earn entry into the Tour de France, and their hopes are limited to chasing stage wins rather than mixing it up in the battle for the yellow jersey.
Froome was fighting for selection and eager to avoid a repeat of last year when he was left out of the Tour line-up, but he will once again not start the Tour de France with Israel-Premier Tech.
The team has put their support behind Stephen Williams and Derek Gee with the aim of winning stages at this year's event.
Williams is enjoying a terrific season, having won both La Flèche Wallonne and the Tour Down Under, and recently finished second in a stage at the Tour de Suisse. He'll, therefore, be a top contender for stage wins in the hilly terrain.
Gee, who last year burst onto the scene with a series of breakaway second places at the Giro d'Italia, makes his Tour debut in the form of his life after scoring a stage win and third overall at the Critérium du Dauphné.
The team should have a presence in the sprints, where Tour debutant Pascal Ackermann aims to add to his Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España stage wins and complete the Grand Tour clean sweep. The rest of the line-up will be made up of stage hunters such as Dylan Teuns (who won here in both 2019 and 2021).
Jayco-AlUla
- Team leader: Simon Yates, Dylan Groenewegen
- Objective: GC, stage wins
- Riders to watch: Michael Matthews
For a second successive season, Jayco-AlUla leader Simon Yates has foregone his usual Giro d’Italia participation in order to concentrate more committedly on the Tour de France.
Last year, this approach turned out to be a success, as he came to the Tour with some of the best legs of his career, eventually finishing fourth overall, and only missing out on a podium finish by 87 seconds to his brother Adam. His build-up to this year’s Tour isn’t so encouraging, however, having not shown much form since winning the AlUla Tour in the winter.
However, he will lead the general classification charge with key support rider Chris Harper alongside, as he hopes to, this year, break Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates' stranglehold on the podium.
Jayco-AlUla aren’t putting all their eggs in the single basket of Yates’ GC bid. Dylan Groenewegen, who recently won a stage at the Tour of Slovenia, will be led out in the sprints by the likes of Luka Mezgec to see if he can add to his five Tour career stage wins, having come close last year with a second and third-place finish at Moulins and Paris, respectively.
On days too hilly for Groenewegen, Michael Matthews, recently second in a stage at the Tour de Suisse, will step up and may also try to get into some breakaways as he did to win a stage in 2022. He looked in fantastic form this spring, placing second at Milan-San Remo and, before being relegated for deviating from his line, third at the Tour of Flanders.
Lidl-Trek
- Team leader: Mads Pedersen
- Objective: stage wins
- Rider to watch: Giulio Ciccone
As a team boasting a diverse range of talent, Lidl-Trek could feasibly compete for all a couple of major jerseys.
For the yellow jersey, they had high hopes for Tao Geoghegan Hart, but COVID-19 and a fractured rib due to a crash at the Dauphiné prevented him from toeing the start line. He’s only done the Tour de France once in his career and was eager to target GC here while still in his prime years.
Mads Pedersen finished a distant second to Jasper Philipsen in the points classification last year, though he did score his second stage win in as many years. He's shown the kind of excellent form throughout this year to suggest he could bridge that gap, as well as add to his stage win tally. His victory in the opening stage at the Dauphine suggests that he is in great form heading into this Tour.
As for the king of the mountains, Giulio Ciccone won that classification last year and will now be present to potentially defend that title after saddle sore surgery forced him to skip the Giro d’Italia. Unfortunately, he was also unwell due to the flu following the Dauphiné, and so his form is uncertain.
Lidl-Trek might even have had a prime candidate for the white jersey if Matias Skjelmose had opted to ride, but he plans to skip the Tour and save himself for a Vuelta a España overall bid instead.
Lotto-Dstny
- Team leader: Arnaud De Lie
- Objective: Stage wins
- Rider to watch: Maxim Van Gils
Compared to other teams, Lotto-Dstny have a laser-focussed approach when it comes to the Tour de France. Not only will it be their first Grand Tour of the season, having opted out of the Giro d’Italia, but they have also narrow down their ambitions to focus exclusively on stage wins, having not placed a rider in the top 10 for 14 years.
They haven’t had success on these terms recently, though, with no stage win to their name since Caleb Ewan’s victories in the sprints during the 2020 edition. The Australian has led the team for the past five Tours, bringing much success initially with multiple stage wins in 2019 and 2020, but nothing in the three editions since then.
He’s now left the team for Jayco-AlUla, and taking his place as Lotto’s leader will be Arnaud De Lie. Much is hoped from the 22-year-old debutant based on his rapid rise over the past two years, and he'll be especially threatening on hillier days where the pure sprinters will struggle.
However, the Tour will be a big step up from the level of competition he’s used to, and he’s only recently returned to form after suffering from Lyme disease during the spring. A recent podium finish in a stage at the Tour de Suisse suggests that he is taking a step forward ahead of the Tour.
De Lie might be the most hyped name, but another young Belgian, Maxim Van Gils, has been the team’s best performer so far this season. He finished second on the stage to Grand Colombier last year and has since established himself as one of the very best puncheurs in the world following podium finishes at Strade Bianche and La Flèche Wallonne, and a fourth place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
2023 super-combativity winner Victor Campanaerts is also set to ride again, though his season to date has been a quiet one.
Movistar
- Team leader: Enric Mas
- Objective: GC, stage wins
- Rider to watch: Rémi Cavagna
2024 has so far been another difficult season for Movistar, with Pelayo Sánchez’s stage victory at the Giro d’Italia their only win at WorldTour level all year.
That doesn’t bode well for their prospects at the Tour de France, where they have, in recent years, laboured to reach the levels of the past. They’ve now gone two successive Tours without placing a rider in the top 10, having done so in eight of the nine previous editions.
If any of their roster is to break that duck, it’ll be Enric Mas. The Spaniard has generally been one of the most dependable GC riders of his generation, making the top six in six of his last eight Grand Tour appearances.
However, he has been forced to abandon both of his last two Tours de France, with his participation last summer ending on the first day following a crash.
So far, Mas has enjoyed a solid season without causing too much of a stir, finishing fifth overall at Volta a Catalunya, sixth at the Tour de Romandie and seventh at the Tour de Suisse. Considering that he normally ups his game for the Grand Tours, that’s encouraging.
The team also have Alex Aranburu, who recently won a stage and finished third overall at the Baloise Belgium Tour. He could be marking stage wins and a support role.
New signing Rémi Cavagna is a dependable name in the time trials, breakaways and in helping team leaders on the flat, though the Frenchman hasn't scored a WorldTour win of his own since 2021. Returning star Nairo Quintana won't make the race, meanwhile, after breaking his hand in a crash at the Tour de Suisse.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
- Team leaders: Primož Roglič
- Objective: GC
- Riders to watch: Jai Hindley, Aleksandr Vlasov
For the 2024 season, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe signed Primož Roglič with the primary objective of winning the Tour de France.
The team might never before have made the podium at any previous edition in their 10-year history, but Roglič has the calibre to challenge for yellow, as well as the desire, having moved from Visma-Lease a Bike for that specific purpose.
The Slovenian has left it to the last minute to show the kind of form he'll need to challenge for the yellow jersey, with his Critérium du Dauphiné victory his best showing of 2024 so far. The week-long warm-up race marked his first race since the heavy crash suffered by him, Remco Evenepoel, and Jonas Vingegaard at Itzulia Basque Country.
His two stage wins at the late summit finishes at Le Collet d'Allevard and Samöens 1600 were his first since the opening day at Itzulia, though a shaky final stage showing – where he shed almost a minute to Matteo Jorgenson and only held onto yellow by eight seconds – could provoke some cause for concern.
Roglič’s presence means last year’s leader Jai Hindley — who enjoyed a day in the yellow jersey after winning stage five in Laruns before back pain contributed to a slip down to seventh on GC — will be demoted to the role of super-domestique.
While Hindley’s form has tailed away since his impressive third-place finish at Tirreno-Adriatico, Aleksandr Vlasov might believe he has the results to justify potential co-leadership status. With a second place at Tour de Romandie, sixth at Volta a Catalunya and fifth at Paris-Nice, he has been among the team's top performers this year. At the Dauphiné, he proved a reliable and strong deputy for Roglič.
Elsewhere, the rest of the team is geared exclusively towards targeting the yellow jersey, with Champs-Elysées-winning sprinter Jordi Meeus missing out on selection as the team looks to domestiques Danny van Poppel, Nico Denz, Marco Haller, Matteo Sobrero, and Bob Jungels.
Soudal-QuickStep
- Team leader: Remco Evenepoel
- Objective: GC
- Rider to watch: Mikel Landa, Ilan Van Wilder
In a drastic change of approach, Soudal-QuickStep have abandoned their usual Tour de France strategy of targeting bunch sprints and stage wins, and instead are going all-in on Remco Evenepoel’s push for GC.
This is set to be Evenepoel’s debut Tour, and it’s a hugely anticipated one, given the already enormous star profile he’s built for himself through many superb performances and major results, including two Liège–Bastogne–Liège victories, the world title in 2022, and the GC at the Vuelta a España that same year.
His build-up has been compromised after a crash and fractured collarbone at Itzulia Basque Country stalled the momentum that had already seen him win Volta ao Algarve and finish second at Paris-Nice, but the plan remains the same.
His first race back, the Critérium du Dauphiné, saw him score a dominant time trial win. However, he faded hard in the closing three mountain stages, losing 2:25 to Primož Roglič and finishing seventh overall in the GC. That will be a major cause for concern heading into July.
As part of the team building around Evenepoel, Mikel Landa has been signed up as a super-domestique. The Spaniard has performed this role in the past – at Sky to help Chris Froome win the 2017 Tour de France and at Movistar for Richard Carapaz’s 2019 Giro d’Italia triumph. Second at Volta a Catalunya and 10th at the Dauphiné suggests he has the legs to do something similar this year, too
Landa will be joined by Evenepoel’s familiar right-hand man, Ilan Van Wilder. The Belgian has ridden in support of Evenepoel many times, most notably during his triumphant Vuelta a España effort two years ago and should be in solid form, too, having placed fourth at the Tour de Romandie.
The team’s focus on GC means there will be no room for in-form sprinter Tim Merlier, despite his success at the Giro d’Italia, nor even home favourite Julian Alaphilippe, as the remaining spots instead go to domestiques including Yves Lampaert, Casper Pedersen, Louis Vervaeke and Gianni Moscon.
TotalEnergies
- Team leader: Mathieu Burgaudeau
- Objective: Stage wins
- Rider to watch: Steff Cras
When TotalEnergies signed Peter Sagan for the 2022 season, they hoped the Slovakian would be the star name to make them protagonists at the Tour de France. His first edition for them was typically consistent, finishing in the top six of five different stages, but lacking the edge of his heyday; by the following year his powers had seriously waned, and he only made the top ten once.
Now that Sagan has retired, the team must embark on a new direction. They’ve struggled at the Tour in recent years and haven’t won a stage since Lilian Calmejane in 2017.
It will be hard for them to break that duck this year. Of the four non-WorldTour entries, they probably have the weakest roster, as reflected by the fact that they’d only won three races this season as of the beginning of June.
Consequently, their strategy will be to buy daily tickets in the lottery that is getting into the breakaway. Mathieu Burgaudeau is a particular specialist at this, having finished second and third on stages of last year’s race, and placed second in the King of the Mountains classification at this year’s Paris-Nice riding similarly aggressively.
The likes of Pierre Latour, Anthony Turgis, Geoffrey Soupe and Alexis Vuillermoz all provide experienced options for TotalEnergies to potentially select. And though the team don’t tend to target GC anymore, Stef Cras’ 11th place finish at the Vuelta a España last year suggests he could become their first rider to crack the top ten since Pierre Rolland in 2015 — although his participation remains up in the air due to his involvement in the horror crash at Itzulia Basque Country.
UAE Team Emirates
- Team leaders: Tadej Pogačar
- Objective: GC
- Rider to watch: Adam Yates, Juan Ayuso
Phase one of UAE Team Emirates’ great ambition to win the Giro/Tour double this year with Tadej Pogačar was a success, with the Slovenian waltzing to an enormous victory at the first Grand Tour. Now, it’s time for the hard part.
Pogačar won the Giro at a canter, almost 10 minutes clear of second place as he won a staggering six stages without ever appearing to have to stretch himself. But at the Tour, he’ll be up against a much stronger field of GC candidates, none of whom have the accumulated fatigue of having already completed a Grand Tour this season – even if Evenepoel, Roglič, and Vingegaard are all making comebacks from that brutal Itzulia crash.
UAE Team Emirates provided ample support to him at the Giro, with Rafał Majka and Vegard Stake Laengen impressing in particular, but the team is set to ring in the changes with an all-new line-up at the Tour.
On paper, it’s a much stronger group of riders, and the team have announced that recent winner of the Tour de Suisse Adam Yates, and runner-up João Almeida, along with Juan Ayuso will support Pogačar's bid for victory at the Tour de France.
In Yates, they have the man who finished third last summer, even if his form this year is in more doubt, having performed only in patches since winning the UAE Tour in February. Ayuso provides another potential GC option, making his Tour debut on the back of a podium finish at the Vuelta a España and overall victory at Itzulia Basque Country earlier this year.
More climbing firepower will come from Almeida, another rider who would slot in as a GC leader at most of the other teams in the peloton. Elsewhere, Pavel Sivakov and Marc Soler bolster the climbing line-up along with Tim Wellens and Nils Politt, the latter pairing set to feature in the engine room during flatter stages.
The team will be hoping Ayuso, Sivakov, Wellens, and Politt recover well from a mass spill at the Critérium du Dauphiné, with Ayuso forced out of the race with pain in both hips as a result.
Uno-X Mobility
- Team leader: Alexander Kristoff
- Objective: Stage wins
- Riders to watch: Andreas Leknessund, Magnus Cort
After making a successful Tour de France debut last year, Uno-X Mobility have been invited back by ASO as a wild card entry again.
Last year, they impressed by being active in the breakaways, with Tobias Halland Johannessen enjoying particular success with three top-six finishes. He’s set to return this year and on the back of some good form, too, having finished sixth at La Flèche Wallonne during the spring.
This time, they’ll have more strings to their bow. In new signing Andreas Leknessund, they have a rider capable of challenging for GC, even if he hasn’t yet shown the form this season that saw him finish eighth overall at the Giro d’Italia last year. And Magnus Cort brings considerable experience as a two-time former stage winner at the Tour, and will be dangerous from an intermediate stage break or reduced bunch sprint.
They will also again have Alexander Kristoff for the bunch sprints, who, though poised to turn 37 during the Tour, has been winning regularly this past month or so and could have it in him to add to his four career Tour stage wins.
But they are also sure to be one of the main presences in the breakaways, with Jonas Abrahamsen posing a particular threat, having recently won the Brussels Cycling Classic that way.
Visma-Lease a Bike
- Team leader: Jonas Vingegaard
- Objective: GC
- Rider to watch: Sepp Kuss, Wout van Aert
The final decision arrived just one week before the start of the Tour de France: Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert were confirmed in Visma-Lease a Bike’s Tour de France line-up, ending weeks of speculation about their fitness and ambitions for the biggest race of the 2024 season.
But as the Tour approaches, however, Visma-Lease a Bike are still cautious on the fitness of Vingegaard. The defending champion’s participation was plunged into doubt when he crashed out of Itzulia Basque Country in April and hasn’t raced since. He has recently returned to training at high altitude, though his exact racing level won't become apparent before the Tour.
Given the severity of that fall, the fact he will return in time for the Tour de France feels miraculous, but doing so with the form to win the yellow jersey again will be an even bigger ask.
Prior to that crash, Vingegaard had started the season in intimidatingly good form, triumphing at both Tirreno-Adriatico and O Gran Camiño while claiming five stage wins in total, and would surely be the overwhelming favourite for yellow were it not for his fitness and form doubts.
The team has stated that Vingegaard has recovered enough from the crash to achieve a good result, while the Dane himself has said, “The last few months have not always been easy, but I thank my family and Team Visma-Lease a Bike for their unwavering support. We have worked together to get to this moment, and of course, I am very excited to see where I stand. I feel good and very motivated."
The team will also field Sepp Kuss, who could potentially fill a GC role. The peerless climbing super-domestique proved himself as a Grand Tour GC rider by winning the Vuelta a España last year, though he hasn’t shown anything like that form so far this year. On top of that, he abandoned the Critérium du Dauphiné before the final day of racing as he wasn't feeling 100%.
Like Vingegaard, Van Aert, too, was a doubt as he tried to recover in time from the injuries that ruled him out of both the Giro d’Italia and the major spring Classics, though he has returned to racing at the Tour of Norway.
Van Aert has won nine stages at the Tour de France and won the green points jersey in 2022. He was keen to return to the Tour after missing the Giro. He has stated that his main goal is to "ride a top classification with Jonas."
Also on the team will be Tiesj Benoot, Jan Tratnik, Christophe Laporte and Wilco Kelderman. Matteo Jorgenson will make for a very useful addition to the line-up, bringing a diverse range of talents that has this year seen him win Paris-Nice and Dwars door Vlaanderen and score a surprising second overall at the Dauphiné.
