Tirreno-Adriatico 2021 start list: Simon Yates, Tadej Pogačar and Geraint Thomas to battle for the title

Grand Tour hopefuls will be out in force at Tirreno-Adriatico (March 10-16), with defending champion Simon Yates down to take to the start line.

Other big names who are down to go against Yates (Team BikeExchange) in the battle for the overall are Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck - Quick-Step), Jakob Fuglsang (Astana-Premier Tech) and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe)

Ineos Grenadiers have put down an incredibly strong team with Gerain Thomas, Egan Bernal, Daniel Martínez, Pavel Sivakov and former Tirreno-Adriatico winner, Michał Kwiatkowski down to all potentially go for GC.

The race does not have the usual team time trial on stage one, instead the start of the race has two sprint stages to suit the many top sprinters who are down to ride such as, Elia Viviani (Cofidis), Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal), Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) and Davide Ballerini (Deceuninck - Quick-Step).

Another sprinter who will be making his first appearance of the season is superstar Slovakian, Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) who is coming back from Covid-19.

One rider who can fit into both slots as he has showed he has amazing ability at both the climbs and the sprints is Belgian star, Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) who is looking to go for GC in a stage race for the first time as he looks to potential lead a team to a Grand Tour one day.

Strade Bianche 2021 winner, Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) will also be on the start list after a very successful debut at the race last year where he took a stage win.

Only a couple of days suit the pure sprinters in this years race but it hasn't stopped then flock to it despite Paris-Nice having a few more days for the fast men.

>>> Tirreno-Adriatico 2021 route: Stages for the 56th edition of the ‘Race of the Two Seas’

Tirreno suits the punchers much more as most of the stages involve several hilly finishes with a couple of uphill finishes that will suit an explosive attack, perhaps from Van Aert or Alaphilippe.

The main stages for the riders in the fight for the blue jersey, though, come in the middle and end of the race with a huge mountain day and the usual individual time trial in San Benedetto del Tronto, albeit with a few changes to the course.

Defending champion, Simon Yates is indeed down to try and defend his title after he looks to bounce back from that Covid-19 positive that saw him drop out of the Giro d'Italia last year.

Tirreno-Adriatico 2021 start list

Team BikeExchange

YATES Simon

STANNARD Robert

ZEITS Andrey

BAUER Jack

HEPBURN Michael

JUUL-JENSEN Chris

MEZGEC Luka

Ineos Grenadiers

THOMAS Geraint

BERNAL Egan

GANNA Filippo

SIVAKOV Pavel

KWIATKOWSKI Michał

MARTÍNEZ Daniel

PUCCIO Salvatore

AG2R La Mondiale-Citroën

VAN AVERMAET Greg

SCHÄR Michael

BOUCHARD Geoffrey

PETERS Nans

CALMEJANE Lilian

VENDRAME Andrea

WARBASSE Larry

Astana-Premier Tech

FUGLSANG Jakob

FELLINE Fabio

ARANBURU Alex

IZAGIRRE Gorka

BOARO Manuele

HOULE Hugo

MARTINELLI Davide

Bahrain Victorious

LANDA Mikel

CARUSO Damiano

TRATNIK Jan

CAPECCHI Eros

PADUN Mark

TRATNIK Jan

WRIGHT Fred

Bora-Hansgrohe

SAGAN Peter

ALEOTTI Giovanni

BURGHARDT Marcus

FABBRO Matteo

KONRAD Patrick

BODNAR Maciej

OSS Daniel

Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux

VLIEGEN Loïc

PASQUALON Andrea

VANSPEYBROUCK Piter

ROTA Lorenzo

HIRT Jan

BAKELANTS Jan

DE GENDT Aimé

Cofidis, Solutions Crédits

VIVIANI Elia

HAAS Nathan

SABATINI Fabio

VANBILSEN Kenneth

VIVIANI Attilio

DRUCKER Jempy

BOHLI Tom

Deceuninck - Quick-Step

ALAPHILIPPE Julian

BALLERINI Davide

VAN LERBERGHE Bert

ASGREEN Kasper

ALMEIDA João

HODEG Alvaro

STYBAR Zdenek

EF Education-Nippo

HIGUITA Sergio

CARR Simon

BETTIOL Alberto

HOWES Alex

SCULLY Tom

HOWES Alex

CRADDOCK Lawson

LANGEVELD Sebastian

Groupama-FDJ

PINOT Thibaut

GENIETS Kevin

THOMAS Benjamin

MOLARD Rudy

MADOUAS Valentin

KÜNG Stefan

LUDVIGSSON Tobias

Israel Start-Up Nation

NIV Guy

HOFSTETTER Hugo

CIMOLAI Davide

BIERMANS Jenthe

DE MARCHI Alessandro

WÜRTZ SCHMIDT Mads

BOIVIN Guillaume

Lotto-Soudal

EWAN Caleb

VAN MOER Brent

WELLENS Tim

FRISON Frederik

KLUGE Roger

VAN DER SANDE Tosh

DE BUYST Jasper

Movistar Team

SOLER Marc

OLIVEIRA Nelson

CATALDO Dario

VILLELLA Davide

GARCÍA CORTINA Iván

TORRES Albert

SERRANO Gonzalo

Alpecin-Fenix

VAN DER POEL Mathieu

MERLIER Tim

VERMEERSCH Gianni

VERGAERDE Otto

RICKAERT Jonas

MEURISSE Xandro

VAKOČ Petr

Team Qhubeka-Assos

POZZOVIVO Dmonenico

GOGL Michael

CLARKE Simon

WIŚNIOWSKI Łukasz

VINJEBO Emil

LINDEMAN Bert-Jan

CLAEYS Dimitri

Team Jumbo-Visma

VAN AERT Wout

FOSS Tobias

GESINK Robert

VAN HOOYDONCK Nathan

AFFINI Edoardo

MARTENS Paul

ROOSEN Timo

Team DSM

BARDET Romain

NIEUWENHUIS Joris

TUSVELD Martijn

DENZ Nico

ARNDT Nikias

HAMILTON Chris

KANTER Max

Trek-Segafredo

NIBALI Vincenzo

CICCONE Giulio

SIMMONS Quinn

SKUJINS Toms

LIEPINS Emils

MOSCHETTI Matteo

MULLEN Ryan

UAE-Team Emirates

POGAČAR Tadej

GAVIRIA Fernando

MAJKA Rafał

FORMOLO Davide

OLIVEIRA Ivo

POLANC Jan

RICHEZE Max

Team Arkéa-Samsic

QUINTANA Nairo

ROSA Diego

BOUDAT Thomas

OWSIAN Łukasz

LEDANOIS Kévin

GUERNALEC Thibault

PICHON Laurent

Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec

MUÑOZ Daniel

PELLAUD Simon

SEPÚLVEDA Eduardo

TESFATSION Natnael

BAIS Mattia

MALUCELLI Matteo

BISOLTI Alessandro

Eolo-Kometa

CHRISTIAN Mark

ROPERO Alejandro

BAIS Davide

BELLETTI Manuel

ALBANESE Vincenzo

ARCHIBALD John

RIVI Samuele

Total Direct Energie

DE LA PARTE Victor

BONIFAZIO Niccolò

TERPSTRA Niki

RODRÍGUEZ Cristián

SIMON Julien

MANZIN Lorrenzo

PETIT Adrien

Gazprom-RusVelo

ZAKARIN Ilnur

KREUZIGER Roman

VALASCO Simone

CANOLA Marco

KOCHETKOV Pavel

NEKRASOV Denis

ROVNY Ivan