A little bit over 2 weeks ago, the teams of the Tour de France 2012 have finally been announced. Today it was the turn for the Vuelta a España 2012 to announce its selection of 22 teams.

In addition to the 18 UCI ProTeams, 2 Spanish teams and 2 foreign teams (one from France and one from The Netherlands) will come to the start of the Tour of Spain 2012 in Pamplona on the 18th of August.

The 4 invited teams for the Tour of Spain 2012

4 Continental Pro teams have thus been invited with a wildcard for the Vuelta a España 2012:

• 2 Spanish teams:
  - Andalucía, which participates in the Tour of Spain since 2007 and which has a former stage winner of the Vuelta among its riders: Gustavo César Veloso who won the 9th stage of the Vuelta a España 2009
  - Caja Rural which will participate for the very first time in the Vuelta a España -which will have its 67th edition- in 2012 and which has for example Manuel Antonio Cardoso and David de la Fuente among its riders
• 2 foreign teams:
  - the Dutch Argos-Shimano team which thus benefits from its second invitation out of three Grands Tours, after the Tour de France 2012
  - the French Cofidis, le crédit en ligne team which also gets its second invitation for a Grand Tour and which will most probably come to the start with its climber David Moncoutié who won since 2008 every year one stage of the Vuelta a España before bringing back home the jersey of the King of the Mountains classifications!

The 18 UCI ProTeams

As a UCI WorldTour race, the Vuelta a España automatically invites the 18 UCI ProTeams to the start of the race in Pamplona on Saturday 18 August: Astana, AG2R La Mondiale, BMC Racing Team, Euskaltel-Euskadi, FDJ BigMat, Garmin-Barracuda, GreenEDGE Cycling Team, Katusha Team, Lampre-ISD, Liquigas-Cannondale, Lotto-Belisol, Movistar Team, Omega Pharma-QuickStep, Rabobank, Radioshack-Nissan, Team Saxo Bank, Team Sky and Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team.

The comments from the invited teams

The only two teams which have commented the announcement of these invitations are Andalucía and Argos-Shimano:

Andalucía : We're very happy with this invitation. We would like to thank Unipublic for counting again on us and we hope to show some good work. We will come to the start with more motivation than ever before

Argos-Shimano : The Vuelta is a big and important race. Our riders, our staff and our sponsors are looking forward to be there. We would like to thank the organisor for its confidence.

We have a very strong team which will go off to Pamplona with some ambitions. We'll give it a try either by attacking or in a sprint

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Vuelta a España | Vuelta a España 2012

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