Unipublic, the organiser of the Vuelta a España, has awarded wild card invitations to the Burgos-BH and Caja Rural-Seguros RGA teams but there is no place for Nairo Quintana's Arkéa-Samsic, Mathieu van der Poel's Alpecin-Fenix, or the Basque Country-based Fundación–Orbea team.
The 19 WorldTour teams are automatically invited to the Spanish Grand Tour, while Total Direct Energie secured a place after topping the 2019 ProTeams classification.
The UCI did not allow a reduction in team sizes from eight to seven riders to make room for extra teams, so the Vuelta peloton will include 176 riders from 22 teams.
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Caja Rural are mainstays of the Vuelta, while Burgos-BH had a strong showing last year with a stage win from Angel Madrazo.
There is no room for 2016 Vuelta champion Nairo Quintana, who now rides for ProTeam Arkéa-Samsic and might have hoped to ride the Vuelta after the Tour de France. Nor will there be a Grand Tour debut for Van der Poel, whose attempts to engineer a Tour de France spot were rejected, but the Dutchman will target the cobbled Classics as the Vuelta unfolds.
There was also no room for the Fundación–Orbea team of the Fundación Euskadi set-up run by Bahrain McLaren rider Mikel Landa, despite them being a ProTeam this year and reviving the old orange jerseys of the Euskaltel-Euskadi days.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vuelta a España has been postponed from mid-August to October 20-November 8, to make way for the Tour de France. Unipublic has accepted to reduce the race to 18 stages, with six stages overlapping with the Giro d'Italia and later stages clashing with Paris-Roubaix and Il Lombardia.
Spain has suffered thousands of cases of COVID-19 but the country has recently begun to emerge from a strict lockdown, with professional riders now allowed to train outdoors.
The Vuelta a España was supposed to start with three stages in the Netherlands but the impact of the pandemic made that impossible. The shortened race will instead start from Irun in the Basque Country, with a hill-top finish to Alto de Arrate on stage 1. It then heads into France and the Pyrenees for a finish atop the Col du Tourmalet before a long ride across northern Spain and into Portugal.
The 22 teams of the 2020 Vuelta a España
- AG2R La Mondiale
- Astana Pro Team
- Bahrain McLaren
- Bora-Hansgrohe
- CCC Team
- Cofidis
- Deceuninck -QuickStep
- EF Pro Cycling
- Groupama-FDJ
- Israel Start-Up Nation
- Lotto Soudal
- Mitchelton-Scott
- Movistar Team
- NTT Pro Cycling Team
- Team Ineos
- Team Jumbo-Visma
- Team Sunweb
- Trek-Segafredo
- UAE Team Emirates
- Total Direct Energie
- Burgos BH
- Caja Rural-Seguros RGA
