Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana headline strong Tour de Romandie line-up (start list)

The general classification at the Tour de Romandie is set to be hard fought with several Grand Tour contenders lining up

Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana on stage twelve of the 2015 Tour de France
(Image credit: Watson)

Chris Froome (Team Sky) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) step up their Tour de France preparations at the Tour de Romandie this week as a number of Grand Tour favourites line up for the Swiss race.

Quintana returns for his third European stage race of the year, having won the Volta a Catalunya and finished third at both the Tour de San Luis and Tour of the Basque Country.

Froome, a two-time winner of this race, leads a strong Sky team, featuring Geraint Thomas, Michal Kwiatkowski and Ian Stannard.

The Brit finished third here last year after a lacklustre final time trial, which saw Katusha duo Ilnur Zakarin and Simon Spilak take the top steps on the podium.

Zakarin returns to defend his title with an eye on honing his form for next month's Giro d'Italia, while Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) will also have the same target.

Check out the Giro d'Italia 2016 route

Dumoulin will be a favourite for the 4km prologue on Tuesday and the 15km time trial on stage three, with Bob Jungels (Etixx-Quick Step) and Jerome Coppel (FDJ) also targeting stage wins.

The general classification battle will be hard fought, with Romain Bardet (Ag2r La Mondiale), Tejay van Garderen, Richie Porte (both BMC), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale), Wilko Kelderman (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Ryder Hesjedal (Trek-Segafredo) likely to be among the contenders.

The sprinters will also have their chances on stages one and five, with Marcel Kittel (Etixx-Quick Step) and Ben Swift (Team Sky) the favourites for the wins.

Start list

Katusha

1 Špilak, Simon

2 Belkov, Maxim

3 Kochetkov, Pavel

4 Lagutin, Sergey

5 Silin, Egor

6 Taaramäe, Rein

7 Vorobyev, Anton

8 Zakarin, Ilnur

Tinkoff

11 Majka, Rafał

12 Blythe, Adam

13 Boaro, Manuele

14 Hernández, Jesús

15 Kišerlovski, Robert

16 Poljanski, Pawel

17 Rovny, Ivan

18 Trofimov, Yuri

Team Sky

21 Froome, Christopher

22 Kwiatkowski, Michal

23 Nieve, Mikel

24 Peters, Alex

25 Puccio, Salvatore

26 Stannard, Ian

27 Swift, Ben

28 Thomas, Geraint

BMC Racing

31 Porte, Richie

32 Bohli, Tom

33 Bookwalter, Brent

34 Caruso, Damiano

35 Moinard, Amaël

36 van Garderen, Tejay

37 Velits, Peter

38 Wyss, Danilo

Etixx - Quick Step

41 Kittel, Marcel

42 Bouet, Maxime

43 Jungels, Bob

44 Martinelli, Davide

45 Sabatini, Fabio

46 Velits, Martin

47 Verona, Carlos

48 Wiśniowski, Łukasz

Movistar Team

51 Quintana, Nairo

52 Amador, Andrey

53 Anacona, Winner

54 Herrada, Jesús

55 Izagirre, Gorka

56 Izagirre, Ion

57 Pedrero, Antonio

58 Rojas, José Joaquín

Orica-GreenEdge

61 Albasini, Michael

62 Gerrans, Simon

63 Haig, Jack

64 Hepburn, Michael

65 Howson, Damien

66 Impey, Daryl

67 Keukeleire, Jens

68 Meier, Christian

FDJ

71 Pinot, Thibaut

72 Bonnet, William

73 Elissonde, Kenny

74 Geniez, Alexandre

75 Morabito, Steve

76 Reichenbach, Sebastien

77 Roux, Anthony

78 Roy, Jérémy

Trek - Segafredo

81 Mollema, Bauke

82 Arredondo, Julián David

83 Beppu, Fumiyuki

84 Bernard, Julien

85 Bobridge, Jack

86 Bonifazio, Niccolo

87 Hesjedal, Ryder

88 Stetina, Peter

LottoNL - Jumbo

91 Kelderman, Wilco

92 Campenaerts, Victor

93 Hofland, Moreno

94 Keizer, Martijn

95 Lammertink, Steven

96 van Emden, Jos

97 van Winden, Dennis

98 Vermeulen, Alexey

Lotto-Soudal

101 Monfort, Maxime

102 Armée, Sander

103 De Clercq, Bart

104 de Gendt, Thomas

105 Marczynski, Tomasz

106 Valls, Rafael

107 Van der Sande, Tosh

108 Vervaeke, Louis

Lampre - Merida

111 Costa, Rui

112 Bono, Matteo

113 Cimolai, Davide

114 Costa, Mário

115 Grmay, Tsgabu

116 Meintjes, Louis

117 Mohoric, Matej

118 Polanc, Jan

Cannondale

121 Uran, Rigoberto

122 Brown, Nathan

123 Dombrowski, Joe

124 Formolo, Davide

125 Moser, Moreno

126 Navardauskas, Ramunas

127 Rolland, Pierre

128 Talansky, Andrew

IAM Cycling

131 Frank, Mathias

132 Coppel, Jérome

133 Devenyns, Dries

134 Hollenstein, Reto

135 Pantano, Jarlinson

136 Reynes, Vicente

137 Wyss, Marcel

138 Zaugg, Oliver

AG2R La Mondiale

141 Bardet, Romain

142 Bakelants, Jan

143 Chérel, Mickaël

144 Dumoulin, Samuel

145 Gastauer, Ben

146 Gretsch, Patrick

147 Latour, Pierre

148 Riblon, Christophe

Astana

151 Sanchez, Luis Leon

152 López, Miguel Ángel

153 Lutsenko, Alexey

154 Rosa, Diego

155 Smukulis, Gatis

156 Tiralongo, Paolo

157 Westra, Lieuwe

158 Zeits, Andrey

Dimension Data

161 Siutsou, Kanstantsin

162 Berhane, Natnael

163 Jim, Songezo

164 Kudus, Merhawi

165 Meyer, Cameron

166 Reguigui, Youcef

167 Sbaragli, Kristian

168 Venter, Jaco

Giant - Alpecin

171 Dumoulin, Tom

172 Fröhlinger, Johannes

173 Haga, Chad

174 Ji, Cheng

175 Ludvigsson, Tobias

176 Preidler, Georg

177 Stamsnijder, Tom

178 Timmer, Albert

Team Roth

181 Kohler, Martin

182 Baillifard, Valentin

183 Brüngger, Nico

184 Krizek, Matthias

185 Page, Dylan

186 Pasqualon, Andrea

187 Pires, Bruno

188 Thalmann, Roland

Wanty - Groupe Gobert

191 Gasparotto, Enrico

192 Bille, Gaetan

193 Claeys, Dimitri

194 Marcato, Marco

195 Martin, Guillaume

196 Mcnally, Mark

197 Minnaard, Marco

198 Veuchelen, Frederik

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