Tom Dumoulin and John Degenkolb in Giant-Alpecin’s Tour de France line-up

John Degenkolb, Tom Dumoulin and Warren Barguil have all been selected as part of Giant-Alpecin‘s nine-man roster for the 2016 Tour de France, which starts on Saturday, July 2.

German Degenkolb has staged a remarkable recovering after nearly losing a finger in a training incident in January, when a car ploughed into a group of Giant-Alpecin riders in Spain.

Degenkolb will be the team’s option for sprint and hilly stages, where he will come up against riders such as former team-mate Marcel Kittel, Mark Cavendish, Peter Sagan and Alexander Kristoff.

Dutchman Dumoulin will receive a great deal of attention during the race on the back of his performance in the Vuelta a España last year and Giro d’Italia in May. He won the opening time trial in the Giro and wore the leader’s jersey for two spells before abandoning the race on stage 11.

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Having just secured the Dutch national time trial title, Dumoulin will be one of the leading favourites in the race’s stages against the clock. Both he and the team have stressed that he won’t be going for the overall, but looking at stage wins as he focuses on the Olympic Games.

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Warren Barguil returns for his second outing in his home Grand Tour. The double 2013 Vuelta stage winner placed 14th overall last year and is looking to see how much further up the general classification he can climb. A third place overall at the Tour de Suisse last week shows he’s on good form.

Few can forget Simon Geschke’s emotional stage win at last year’s Tour, and he returns this season for his fourth outing in the race.

The roster for the German WorldTour team is completed with Laurens ten Dam, Georg Preidler, Roy Curvers, Ramon Sinkeldam and Albert Timmer.

“Our goals will be to go for a stage victory, as we see several opportunities to achieve that, and also to explore our possibilities in the GC with Warren,” said Giant-Alpecin coach Aike Visbeek.

“We have made a long-term plan with him, aiming to develop his general classification performance over the next few years. This will be his second appearance in his home Grand Tour, and we believe a top-15 is again a realistic target for him.

“We have a great blend of experience and youth in our lineup. This year’s Tour de France offers more opportunities in the mountains, with some tough stages, and we took that into consideration when we made our final selection.”

The 2016 Tour de France starts in Mont-Saint-Michel on Saturday, July 2, and finishes in Paris on Sunday, July 24. British rider Chris Froome (Sky) returns as defending champion.

Giant-Alpecin Tour de France 2016 team

Warren Barguil (Fra)
Roy Curvers (Ned)
Laurens Ten Dam (Ned)
John Degenkolb (Ger)
Tom Dumoulin (Ned)
Simon Geschke (Ger)
Georg Preidler (Aut)
Ramon Sinkeldam (Ned)
Albert Timmer (Ned)