BORA - HANSGROHE

The team founded by Ralph Denk as NetApp–Endura has become the greatest exponent of German cycling since Milram folded in 2010. It played its role as a wild-card team with gusto in its first Tour de France in 2014, when Jan Bárta sent alarm bells ringing through the peloton in the streets of London. The Czech rider also finished the race on a high note with third place in the time trial between Bergerac and Périgueux.

The team rallied around its leader, fellow Czech Leopold König, an outstanding climber who had already won a stage in the 2013 Vuelta a España and wrapped up his first Tour de France in seventh place. Wild cards helped the squad to grow, recruit sponsors such as Bora, Hansgrohe and Specialized, and snap up two stars from the defunct Tinkoff squad, Peter Sagan and Rafał Majka. In 2017, the three-time world champion's first Tour de France with his new team was cut short when race officials booted him out of the race the day after his stage win in Longwy. Even though that marked the end of his triumphant streak in green, the Slovak rebounded with another batch of stage wins and another spell in yellow in 2018, bringing his total in the points classification to six victories that same year and setting an absolute record of seven in 2019.

Sagan went through two lean seasons in the Tour de France. He missed out on a stage win and the green jersey in both 2020 (when Sam Bennett became the first challenger to beat him) and 2021 (when he crashed out of the race). In the end, Bora–Hansgrohe chose not to extend his contract, not least because of the depth of its roster, with the Germans, Austrians and others. Maximilian Schachmann, the winner of the 2020 and 2021 Paris–Nice, has so far been unable to perform at a similar level in the Grande Boucle, unlike Emanuel Buchmann, who finished fourth in the 2019 Tour de France, Lennard Kämna, who took an emotional victory in Villard-de-Lands in 2020, Nils Politt and Patrick Konrad, who picked up solo stage wins in 2021, and Wilco Kelderman, who came in fifth overall that same year. Twelve months later, Aleksandr Vlasov posted the same result in Paris shortly after his triumph in the Tour de Romandie. The squad is eyeing a third consecutive top 5 finish with yet another rider, the Australian Jai Hindley, 2022 Giro champion and fourth in the 2023 Critérium du Dauphiné. Sam Bennett, the winner of the green jersey in 2020, will also turn heads in his Tour comeback.