Agritubel pre-selects Tour de France roster

French team Agritubel pre-selected 13 riders for the eventual nine-man Tour de France team yesterday. The team will make its final selection following a training camp in Autrans in Isère, France, June 8 to 16.

Freddy Bichot, Maxime Bouet, Sylvain Calzati, Brice Feillu, Romain Feillu, Eduardo Gonzalo, Yann Huguet, Christophe Laurent, David Le Lay, Geoffroy Lequatre, Christophe Moreau, Anthony Ravard and Nicolas Vogondy are the pre-selected riders.

Agritubel, a second division Professional Continental team, has competed in the Tour de France since 2006. Juan Miguel Mercado won a stage for the team in 2006 and Romain Feillu finished second three times and wore the leader's maillot jaune last year.

The Tour de France organiser named its 20 participating teams in March. Agritubel is one of three Professional Continental teams participating; the other 17 are top-level ProTour teams.

The teams are Cervélo TestTeam, Skil-Shimano, Agritubel, Milram, Quick Step, Silence-Lotto, Saxo Bank, Caisse d'Epargne, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Garmin-Slipstream, Columbia-Highroad, AG2R La Mondiale, Bbox Bouygues Telecom, Cofidis, Française des Jeux, Lampre-NGC, Liquigas, Astana, Rabobank and Katusha.