Movistar announces Tour de France long team

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The Movistar team today named a list of ten riders from which will come the final nine-man selection for the Tour de France. The contenders, who have been training at altitude in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Spain, include Alejandro Valverde, winner of the Vuelta a Andalucia, runner-up on the Tour Down Under and third place in Paris-Nice this year, as well as 2011 Vuelta champion Juan Jose Cobo.

Also on the list is Rui Costa, who claimed third in the Tour de Romandie, José Joaquín Rojas, David Arroyo, Rubén Plaza, Imanol Erviti, Iván Gutiérrez, Vladimir Karpets and Vasil Kiryienka. Ignatas Konovalovas and David López will act as reserves.

Most of the team has been in the mountains in Granada for the past two weeks, but will soon be heading to either to France for the Critérium du Dauphiné or to the Tour de Suisse.

While the team did not reveal which riders will participate in which races, the preliminary rosters for the Critérium du Dauphiné list Cobo, Arroyo, Erviti, Kiryienka and Plaza while Valverde, Costa, Gutierrez, Karpets and Rojas are listed under the Tour de Suisse.