Organisers of the Deutschland Tour organisers have confirmed the start list for the 36th edition of the race and it has some of the sport's biggest names.
The race around Germany takes place over four challenging stages that see a mix of sprint and hilly stages to find the overall winner of the orange leader's jersey.
This year's race should see a heated battle in both the bunch sprints and the fight for the overall as stars from both sides are down to ride.
Joint record-holder for the most stage wins at the Tour de France, Mark Cavendish teams up with recent Tour of Poland winner João Almeida in a strong Deceuninck - Quick-Step squad that also sees French champion Rémi Cavagna, and new father Yves Lampaert among the squad's line-up.
Chris Froome continues his fight back to full fitness as he joins André Greipel and Patrick Bevin with Israel Start-Up Nation, as the seven-time Grand Tour winner begins his final racing block of the season.
The German WorldTour squad, Bora-Hansgrohe have of course sent an all-German team with Pascal Ackermann, Emanuel Buchmann and Nils Politt starring for them.
Former world champion Rui Costa comes with Davide Formolo and Alexander Kristoff (all UAE Team Emirates) with German sprinter Phil Bauhaus and Spaniard Pello Bilbao leading Bahrain Victorious.
Even the German national team has a big name in John Degenkolb, who rides for his nation due to the absence of Lotto-Soudal at the race.
Other riders who catch the eye are Tour de France top-10 rider Ben O'Connor (Ag2r-Citroën), Norwegian sprinter Kristoffer Halvorsen (Uno-X), young German climber Marco Brenner (DSM), teenage talent Ben Tullet (Alpecin-Fenix), Ilnur Zakarin (Gazprom-RusVelo), Francisco Galván and Roger Adrià (both Kern Pharma).
Starting on the north coast of Germany before a long transfer down to the central part of the nation, the race then starts to link up and head further south to the hills.
Its opening stage starts in Stralsund and finishes in Schwerin on a largely flat 191km route, then onto the second stage between Sangerhausen and Ilmenau with a very hilly finale and should be a battle in the GC.
The third day is likely going to be the most challenging for the riders with climbs in the finish town of Erlangen after starting in Ilmenau. The last stage should be another sprint with Erlangen being the start town with the finish in Nürnberg.
Racing starts on Thursday, August 26 with the race ending on Sunday, August 29.
Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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