Sastre gets top Vuelta honour

The Vuelta a España has announced Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre (Team CSC-Saxo Bank) will wear number one at his home Grand Tour later this month. Sastre finished runner-up at last year's Vuelta, where Russian Denis Menchov (Rabobank) put in an impressive performance to claim his second title at the event.

The announcement Sastre will ride in the top jersey comes as organisers release a list of teams contesting this year's race and their respective top riders. There's few surprises on the list, with Tour bridesmaid Cadel Evans leading his Silence-Lotto squad, Alejandro Valverde heading up Caisse d'Epargne, Vladimir Efimkin leading AG2R - La Mondiale and Oscar Freire guiding Rabobank.

This year's Vuelta will also pit the new Tour champion against 2007 winner Alberto Contador (Astana). The two Spaniards didn't get to battle one another for this year's French Grand Tour win as Contador's squad wasn't invited to defend his title.

Vuelta a España teams and leaders: Team CSC - Saxo Bank (Carlos Sastre), AG2R - La Mondiale (Vladimir Efimkin), Andalucía - Caja Sur (José Luís Carrasco), Astana (Alberto Contador), Bouygues Telecom (Dimitri Champion), Caisse d´Epargne (Alejandro Valverde), Cofidis, le Credit par telephone (Sylvain Chavanel), Credit Agricole (Eric Berthou), Euskaltel - Euskadi (Igor Anton), Française des Jeux (Sandy Casar), Gerolsteiner (Davide Rebellin), Karpin Galicia (Ezequiel Mosquera), Lampre (Damiano Cunego), Liquigas (Daniele Bennati), Quick Step (Paolo Bettini), Rabobank (Oscar Freire), Silence-Lotto (Cadel Evans), Team Milram (Erik Zabel) and Tinkoff Credit Systems (Mikhail Ignatiev).