With the Tour de France still recent enough that it can still be glimpsed in the rear-view mirror, it’s time for the third and final men’s Grand Tour of the season – the Vuelta a España.
While it so often plays a subordinate role to its French and Italian counterparts, this year it finds itself in the limelight thanks to the participation of recent Tour winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). It’s only his second participation, and the first since 2019, when he was still a mere mortal, albeit one for whom the future looked starry.
Victory here would mean he has won every Grand Tour – a feat achieved by his closest rival Jonas Vingegaard earlier this season. Visma-Lease a Bike‘s Vingegaard will not be challenging the Slovenian at the Vuelta, but he will face opposition from other quarters.
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Four-time Vuelta winner Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) leads the challengers, who also boast Oscar Onley (Netcompany-Ineos), Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) in their ranks.
Against Pogačar they know they have a dizzying task, but he is human like the everyone else on the start list, and carrying the mental and physical fatigue of a recent Tour de France victory. Anything could happen.
Read on for the full startlist, with only Netcompany-Ineos and Pinarello Q36.5 still to be confirmed. There are 23 teams with 184 riders at the race, so eight per squad.
Tour de France 2026 start list
Alpecin-Premier Tech
Ramses Debruyne (Bel, 23)
Kaden Groves (Aus, 27)
Michael Gogl (Aut, 31)
Francesco Busatto (Ita, 23)
Sente Sentjens (Bel, 20)
Lindsay De Vylder (Bel, 31)
Gal Glivar (Svn, 24)
Hugo Houle (Can, 35)
Bahrain Victorious
Pello Bilbao (Esp, 36)
Santiago Buitrago (Col, 26)
Roman Ermakov (Svn, 21)
Pau Miquel (Esp, 25)
Matevž Govekar (Svn, 26)
Jakob Omrzel (Svn, 20)
Mathijs Paasschens (Ned, 30)
Attila Valter (Hun, 28)
Decathlon CMA CGM
Léo Bisiaux (Fra, 21)
Oscar Chamberlain (Aus, 21)
Sander De Pestel (Bel, 27)
Felix Gall (Aut, 28)
Jordan Labrosse (Fra, 23)
Gregor Mühlberger (Aut, 32)
Matthew Riccitello (USA, 24)
Callum Scotson (Aus, 30)
EF Education-EasyPost
Richard Carapaz (Ecu, 33)
James Shaw (Gbr, 30)
Vincenzo Albanese (Ita, 29)
Markel Beloki (Esp, 21)
Alastair Mackellar (Aus, 25)
Darren Rafferty (Irl, 23)
Georg Steinhauser (Ger, 25)
Juan Felipe Rodriguez (Col, 25)
Groupama-FDJ United
Guillaume Martin (Fra, 33)
Olivier Le Gac (Fra, 33)
Rudy Molard (Fra, 36)
Clément Berthet (Fra, 29)
Bastien Tronchon (Fra, 24)
Enzo Paleni (Fra, 23)
Valentin Madouas (Fra, 29)
Rémy Rochas (Fra, 30)
Jayco-AlUla
Paul Double (Gbr, 30)
Finlay Pickering (Gbr, 22)
Alessandro Covi (Ita, 27)
Asbjørn Hellemose (Den, 27)
Jasha Sütterlin (Ger, 33)
Hamish McKenzie (Nzl, 21)
Koen Bouwman (Ned, 32)
Rudy Porter (Aus, 25)
Lidl-Trek
Mattias Skjelmose (Den, 25)
Mads Pedersen (Den, 30)
Thibau Nys (Bel, 23)
Julien Bernard (Fra, 34)
Lennard Kämna (Ger, 29)
Patrick Konrad (Aut, 34)
Jacopo Mosca (Ita, 33)
Mathias Norsgaard (Den, 29)
Lotto-Intermarché
Jarno Widar (Bel, 20)
Lars Craps (Bel, 23)
Luca Van Boven (Bel, 26)
Vito Braet (Bel, 25)
Steffen De Schuyteneer (Bel, 21)
Lorenzo Rota (Ita, 31)
Roel Van Sintmaartensdijk (Ned, 25)
Reuben Thompson (Nzl, 25)
Movistar
Orluis Aular (Ven, 29)
Enric Mas (Esp, 31)
Cian Uijtdebroeks (Bel, 23)
Iván Romeo (Esp, 23)
Carlos Canal (Esp, 25)
Jorge Arcas (Esp, 34)
Raúl García Pierna (Esp, 25)
Pablo Castrillo (Esp, 25)
Netcompany-Ineos (prov.)
Carlos Rodríguez (Esp, 25)
Laurens De Plus (Bel, 30)
Oscar Onley (Gbr, 23)
NSN Cycling
George Bennett (Nzl, 36)
Jan Hirt (Cze, 35)
Hugo Hofstetter (Fra, 32)
Moritz Kretschy (Ger, 23)
Alexey Lutsenko (Kaz, 33)
Pau Martí (Esp, 21)
Nick Schultz (Aus, 32)
Floris Van Tricht (Bel, 25)
Picnic PostNL
Guillermo Juan Martinez (Col, 21)
Mattia Gaffuri (Ita, 27)
Chris Hamilton (Aus, 31)
Henri-François Renard-Haquin (Fra, 23)
Timo De Jong (Ned, 27)
Gijs Leemreize (Ned, 26)
Oliver Peace (Gbr, 21)
Timo Roosen (Ned, 33)
Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe
Primož Roglič (Slo, 36)
Gianni Vermeersch (Bel, 33)
Luke Tuckwell (Aus, 21)
Finn Fisher-Black (Nzl, 24)
Jordi Meeus (Bel, 27)
Gianni Moscon (Ita, 32)
Callum Thornley (Gbr, 24)
Frederik Wandahl (Den, 24)
Soudal Quick-Step
Fabio Van Den Bossche (Bel, 25)
Steff Cras (Bel, 30)
Alberto Dainese (Ita, 28)
Gianmarco Garofoli (Ita, 23)
Ethan Hayter (Gbr, 27)
Filippo Zana (Ita, 27)
Mikel Landa (Esp, 36)
Valentin Paret-Peintre (Fra, 25)
UAE Team Emirates-XRG
Tadej Pogačar (Slo, 27)
João Almeida (Por, 28)
Jay Vine (Aus, 30)
Pavel Sivakov (Fra, 29)
Pablo Torres (Esp, 20)
Kevin Vermaerke (USA, 25)
Ivo Oliveira (Por, 29)
Domen Novak (Slo, 31)
Uno-X Mobility
Tobias Halland Johannessen (Nor, 26)
Andreas Kron (Den, 28)
Fredrik Dversnes (Nor, 29)
Rasmus Tiller (Nor, 30)
Magnus Cort (Den, 33)
Simon Dalby (Den, 25)
Martin Tjøtta (Nor, 25)
Andreas Leknessund (Nor, 27)
Visma-Lease a Bike
Wout Van Aert (Bel, 31)
Matthew Brennan (Gbr, 21)
Jørgen Nordhagen (Nor, 21)
Ben Tulett (Gbr, 24)
Steven Kruijswijk (Ned, 39)
Christophe Laporte (Fra, 33)
Bruno Armirail (Fra, 32)
Sepp Kuss (USA, 31)
XDS-Astana
Henok Mulubrhan (Eri, 26)
Harold Tejada (Col, 29)
Cristián Rodríguez (Esp, 31)
Lorenzo Fortunato (Ita, 30)
Victor Langellotti (Mco, 31)
Darren Van Bekkum (Ned, 24)
Yevgeniy Fedorov (Kaz, 26)
Alessandro Romele (Ita, 22)
Tudor Pro Cycling
Marco Brenner (Deu, 23)
Stefan Küng (Che, 32)
Will Barta (USA, 30)
Arthur Kluckers (Lux, 26)
Roland Thalmann (Che, 33)
Larry Warbasse (USA, 36)
Fabian Weiss (Che, 24)
Hannes Wilksch (Deu, 24)
Cofidis
Bryan Coquard (Fra, 34)
Emanuel Buchmann (Ger, 33)
Alexis Renard (Fra, 27)
Alex Kirsch (Lux, 34)
Sylvain Moniquet (Bel, 28)
Paul Ourselin (Fra, 32)
Louis Rouland (Fra, 23)
Sergio Samitier (Esp, 30)
Pinarello Q36.5 (prov.)
Milan Vader (Ned, 30)
David De La Cruz (Esp, 37)
Walter Calzoni (Ita, 25)
Marcel Camprubí (Esp, 24)
Burgos Burpellet
Jesús Herrada (Esp, 36)
José Manuel Díaz (Esp, 31)
Sergio Geovani Chumil (Gua, 25)
José Luis Faura (Esp, 25)
Mario Aparicio (Esp, 26)
Sinuhé Fernández (Esp, 26)
Clément Alleno (Fra, 25)
César Macías (Mex, 27)
Kern Pharma
Iván Cobo (Esp, 25)
Urko Berrade (Esp, 31)
Marc Brustenga (Esp, 27)
Iñigo Elosegui (Esp, 27)
Ibon Ruiz (Esp, 30)
Iván Ramiro Sosa (Col, 28)
Diego Uriarte (Esp, 23)
Mats Wenzel (Lux, 23)
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