Simon Yates to target white jersey at Tour de France

The Bury rider will take on joint leadership of the Australian team alongside Colombian Esteban Chavez.

It will be a third Tour de France start for Yates, whose twin brother and team-mate Adam won the young riders' classification and finished fourth overall last year.

This season, Adam rode the Giro d'Italia instead of the Tour while Simon - who was originally due to follow an identical program - shifted his focus to France in April as the team revised its plans.

Sport director Matt White said: "For Simon, we'd like to challenge for the white jersey and if we can beat the likes of Louis Meintjes (UAE Team Emirates) and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) in that competition, it also makes a top 10 result viable."

The team added Yates to their Tour plans in April amid concerns over Chavez's fitness as he recovers from injury.

Yates responded almost immediately by finishing second overall at the Tour de Romandie a little over a week after the announcement.

The 24-year-old started both the 2014 and 2015 Tours but missed last year's edition after receiving a four-month ban for a failed doping test - for which the team took responsibility saying they had failed to properly apply for a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) for his asthma inhaler.

Last year, Orica-Scott's goals were split between supporting Adam in the general classification fight and Michael Matthews in the sprints, but with Matthews now at Team Sunweb, White said the team's sole focus would be on supporting their two climbers.

"We have two guys to support and seven guys to do it," he said. "We have a very versatile team and in terms of depth for what we are trying to achieve at this year's Tour, it's as good as we have got.

"There will be the opportunity to go for stages but the main objective is to support our leaders."

The Tour starts in Dusseldorf on July 1.