Men’s Tour of Britain Provisional Start List

With five days to go until Britain’s biggest professional cycle race returns, the provisional rider list for the Lloyds Men’s Tour of Britain has today (Thursday) been published, featuring the winners of Olympic titles, World Championships, and Grand Tours.

NEWS: PROVISIONAL START LIST FOR MEN’S TOUR OF BRITAIN
Link to Startlist PDF

With five days to go until Britain’s biggest professional cycle race returns, the provisional rider list for the Lloyds Men’s Tour of Britain has today been published, featuring the winners of Olympic titles, World Championships, and Grand Tours.

114 riders representing 19 teams and 20 different nations are due to start the 21st modern edition of the Tour of Britain Men, which begins in Woodbridge, East Suffolk, on Tuesday 2 September.

Joining Olympic road race and time trial champion Remo Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) and double world road race champion Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor Pro Cycling) on the provisional rider list, is 2018 Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers), in what will be his final professional race, and a second British Grand Tour champion in 2020 Giro d’Italia winner Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek).

Geoghegan Hart is due to return to the Men’s Tour of Britain for the first time in eight years and should line-up for Lidl-Trek alongside another Grand Tour stage winner in Bauke Mollema, a former winner of the prestigious Il Lombardia one-day race.

A brace of former Milan-Sanremo and Gent Wevelgem winners in John Degenkolb (Team Picnic PostNL) and Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) are also due to race. The pair have also won the sport’s biggest Monuments: Paris Roubaix (Degenkolb) and the Ronde van Vlaanderen (Kristoff), between them, as well a combined 17 Grand Tour stages. Kristoff and Degenkolb are among the 18 riders on the Men’s Tour of Britain provisional start list who have tasted success in one or more of the three Grand Tours.

Moving right up-to-date with success in this summer’s Tour de France, Thomas could be joined in the INEOS Grenadiers line-up by double stage winner Thymen Arensman, while there is sure to be plenty of home support for Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL) after his fourth place finish in France this summer.

With Stephen Williams (Israel – Premier Tech) unable to defend his Lloyds Tour of Britain title through recovery injury, Oscar Onley is the best placed rider from 2024 to return, having come second and won the best young rider jersey 12 months ago.

The riders third, fourth, and fifth in the general classification last year all return, in Tom Donnenwirth (Groupama FDJ), Mark Donovan (Q36.5 Pro Cycling), and Joseph Blackmore (Israel – Premier Tech) respectively.

Blackmore impressed during the early stages of his Tour de France debut this summer, and is one of a number of talented young British riders who will be keen to impress their home fans, including Thomas Gloag and Matthew Brennan (both Team Visma | Lease a Bike), the latter of whom has just won two stages of the Deutschland Tour.

The Visma | Lease a Bike pair will have Men’s Tour of Britain record equaller Olav Kooij as a teammate. On his sole appearance in the race, in 2023, Kooij won four consecutive stages of the race and the points jersey. Since then, the Dutchman has taken three stage wins at the Giro d’Italia, including two this summer, and illustrated his good form with a stage win and fifth overall at the Renewi Tour last week.

In total, nine former Men’s Tour of Britain stage winners are on the provisional rider list. Edoardo Affini, Alaphilippe, Sam Bennett, Matevž Govekar, Kooij, Ben Swift, Rasmus Tiller, Matteo Trentin, and Julian Vermote have won thirteen stages between them in the race since 2009. Trentin (Tudor Pro Cycling), like Kooij and Kristoff, is also a former winner of the points jersey in the race.

Further interest is added with a trio of reigning national road race champions including Ireland’s Rory Townsend (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) and Norway’s Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility), with Townsend having recently taken the biggest victory of his career, by winning the ADAC Cyclassics UCI WorldTour race in Hamburg. Sam Watson (INEOS Grenadiers) will become the latest British national champion with the honour of wearing the red, white, and blue jersey in their home tour.

Other riders to look out for include sprinters Juan Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates XRG), who won the UCI WorldTour level Classic Brugge-De Panne race in March, and former USA criterium champion Luke Lamperti (Soudal Quick-Step), who tasted success in British races like the CiCLE Classic and Lincoln GP, while riding for TRINITY Racing earlier in his career.

Commenting on the provisional rider line-up, Jonathan Day, Managing Director of British Cycling Events, said; “Everything is in place for what will be another incredible edition of the Lloyds Tour of Britain Men, and following on from the high quality line up we had at the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women, it’s great to be able to welcome this world-class line-up of teams and riders to the race and it is testament to the status of the event.

“Like the fans, we now cannot wait for the racing to start in East Suffolk next week, and look forward to the joy and excitement that each of the six stages will bring to communities and spectators along the route, plus all of those watching the live broadcast at home, and around the world.”

The Lloyds Tour of Britain Men begins on Tuesday 2 September with a pair of stages in Suffolk, the first from Woodbridge to Southwold, before a leg starting and finishing in Stowmarket. Following stages take in Milton Keynes and a first visit to Ampthill in Central Bedfordshire, before a challenging Warwickshire stage ending in a hilltop finish at Burton Dassett Hills Country Park.

The race concludes with a brace of challenging stages in south Wales, the first including a double ascent of The Tumble, before a final stage between the Geraint Thomas National Velodrome of Wales in Newport to the Welsh capital, Cardiff, on Sunday 7 September.

As well as live coverage and highlights of all six stages on ITV4 and ITVX, fans can also watch and engage with the race across digital platforms, by following the Lloyds Tour of Britain on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, X (Twitter) and Strava as well as signing up to receive daily insights in their inbox.