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The last grand tour of the season starts tomorrow, here is some information about the teams and favourites to get you started.

The start list.

GC Riders and Teams

One of the most noticeable things about the list is the absence of Primoz Roglic, the winner of the 2024 race is not turning up to defend his title. One big name turning up is Jonas Vingegaard who has a strong team to support him including the 2023 winner Sepp Kuss, the team have already won the Giro this year but are looking like the clear favourites for GC. UAE also have a strong team with Joao Almeida and Juan Ayuso racing, both being GC riders with wins to their name. Jai Hindley of Red Bull BORA hansgrohe is racing as the GC rider where Roglic would have been expected but Hindley has proved himself in the past as a strong rider.

Mikel Landa and Egan Bernal are the leaders of their teams but not much will be expected, neither has won a race recently and are not among the favourites overall, they may still be seen fighting for a top 10 spot by the end. Felix Gall of Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team is another GC rider hoping for a top 10 spot and possibly a podium over the 21 stages with plenty of mountains to take opportunity of. Last year's second placed Ben O'Connor will be looking to equal or better his result and may try to pull another strong breakaway move in the mountains. Other riders hoping for a good GC result include Jorge Alcas of Movistar and Esteban Chaves of EF Education EasyPost.

Sprinters

In terms of sprinters this year we have Jasper Philipsen who crashed out of the Tour after securing a win but would have likely won more if he was able to continue. The team of Alpecin Deceuninck seem to have the aim of the points jersey with Philipsen being the team leader this year, the team won the jersey last year with Kaden Groves. Mads Pedersen is joining the hunt for wins in sprint finishes which look to be far and few this year however, his team look to be more of a GC team with their leader being Andrea Bagioli. Ethan Vernon of Israel Premier Tech with the team looking set for stage wins rather than an overall jersey.

Breakaway riders and stage hunters

For the one individual time trial we have riders including Magnus Sheffield and Filippo Ganna from INEOS Grenadiers as well as Jay Vine from UAE and Stefan Kung riding for Groupama FDJ. On top of those riders there will of course be the GC favourites who know by now that a good TT performance could be the difference between winning the race and coming second, Jonas Vingegaard has proved himself to be good and Visma may be able to win the team time trial unless INEOS can pull something off with their TT specialists.

In the mountains there will be breakaways all over the place with smaller teams including Caja Rural Seguros RGA and Burgos Burpellet BH showing off their sponsors and trying to get a stage win out of the race. Individual riders to watch out for include Thomas Pidcock who is great at descending and Giulio Ciccone who is one of the best climbers in the race.

The Stages

1 individual time trial on stage 18

1 team time trial on stage 5

4 flat stages: 1, 8, 19, 21

9 hilly stages: 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16

6 mountain stages: 6, 7, 13, 14, 17, 20