Peter Sagan will ride in the Tour De France after the 22 teams for the event were confirmed
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Published 11/02/2022 at 12:35 GMT
Team TotalEnergies' Peter Sagan will ride in the Tour De France after the 22 teams for the event were confirmed by race director Christian Prudhomme on Friday. Prudhomme said it was a "logical" choice and that the Slovakian is an "emblematic" rider in a sport that doesn't have many. The race begins in Denmark this year on July 1, with the usual Champs Elysees finish set for July 24.
Peter Sagan, pictured here at the 2021 Tour De France, will compete in the 2022 event for Team TotalEnergies.
Image credit: Getty Images
Peter Sagan will once again feature in the Tour De France after the 22 teams for the 2022 edition were confirmed by race director Christian Prudhomme.
Sagan - a seven-time winner of the green jersey - joined French outfit Team TotalEnergies in the close season, having left Bora-Hansgrohe.
However his new team's second-tier status meant that they didn't qualify automatically for the blue-riband event.
Luckily for him, Prudhomme and the Tour retain the right to hand out two team invitations - and TotalEnergies will receive one of those alongside another French team, B&B Hotels.
Prudhomme said: "It is a logical choice.
"Sagan is an emblematic person in a sport not blessed with many."
Sagan will continue to require his team to get invitations if he wants to ride the big races on the cycling calendar but as he declared to L'Equipe when joining TotalEnergies, he sees their status as a chance to build something new.
“We are going to build a team around me and this is what attracts me to the project," he said.
"It’s pressure, sure, but it’s just been my routine for a long time. It was no different with my old teams.
“When I joined Bora-Hansgrohe in 2016, people also spoke of it as a small team.
“The real question concerning TotalEnergies is not knowing what kind of team it is now, but what path it intends to take.
"I don’t care that they’re not currently on the World Tour, I want to help it grow.”
Of the Norwegian Uno-X Pro Cycling Team, who weren't invited to the Tour but whose rider Tobias Johannessen won the Tour de l'Avenir last year and a stage on last week's Etoile de Besseges, Prudhomme said: "We have invited them to several of our races and we will follow their fortunes closely."
The 22 teams taking part in the Tour will be: AG2R Citroën (FRA), Alpecin (BEL), Arkea-Samsic (FRA), Astana (KAZ), Bahrain (BAH), BikeExchange (AUS), Bora (GER), Cofidis (FRA), DSM (NED), Education First (USA), Groupama-FDJ (FRA), Ineos (GBR), Intermarche (BEL), Israel Start-Up Nation (ISR), Jumbo (NED), Lotto (BEL), Movistar (ESP), Quick-Step (BEL), Trek (USA), UAE (UAE), B&B Hotels (FRA) and TotalEnergies (FRA).
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