Sir Bradley Wiggins and Marcel Kittel to ride Tour de Yorkshire as teams announced

Sir Bradley Wiggins and Marcel Kittel will ride in May’s inaugural Tour de Yorkshire, both riders confirmed as taking part in part in the race following the announcement today of the teams that will line up at the start in Bridlington on Friday 1 May.

Wiggins will head up his own Team WIGGINS, which he will join in April after Paris-Roubaix, while Kittel, winner of the opening stage of last year’s Tour de France in Harrogate to take the yellow jersey, returns with his Giant-Alpecin team.

That’s one of five WorldTeams that will compete in three-day race, ranked UCI 2.1, the others being Team Sky, BMC Racing, Lotto NL-Jumbo and IAM Cycling.

They will be joined by six Professional Continental Teams – Cofidis, Europcar, MTN-Qhubeka, Cult Energy, Roompot Oranje Peloton and Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise., four Continental Teams – Team WIGGINS, NFTO, ONE Pro Cycling and Madison Genesis, and a Great Britain National Team.

Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme said: “We will be glad to return to Yorkshire after the huge success of the Tour de France 2014 Grand Départ, the grandest ever.

“The first ever Tour de Yorkshire will be another occasion to showcase the outstanding landscapes of the county, especially of the coast which we didn’t visit last year with Le Tour.

“The Tour de Yorkshire will be a great opportunity to review young talents among British riders and enable them to ride with top Tour de France professional teams and cycling stars like Sir Bradley Wiggins and Marcel Kittel.”

Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, added; “Today is a landmark moment for Yorkshire and it is a credit to every single person who played a role in the Grand Départ – whether they were a spectator, a rider, a Tour Maker – that we have attracted such a high calibre of teams to this first edition of our new race.

“The start and finish towns for the Tour de Yorkshire and everybody who has already picked out where they will watch on the day, and now, every member of these teams, will experience one of the greatest sports events in the UK in 2015.”

The opening stage on Friday 1 May runs from Bridlington to Scarborough and will be followed by stages from Selby to York and Wakefield to Leeds.

The second day will also see a women’s race tackling four laps of a 20km circuit in York, with one team already confirmed being Dame Sarah Storey’s Pearl Izumi Sports Tours International.

The Tour de Yorkshire will be broadcast live on ITV and Eurosport.