Jens Voigt to lead Leopard Trek in next month's Tour of Britain

Leopard Trek’s hugely popular Jens Voigt will be telling his legs to ‘shut up’ on the roads of Scotland, England and Wales next month, following the announcement that he will lead the Luxembourg-based team in the race. Other teams announcing their line-ups today are Rabobank, Europcar and An Post Sean Kelly.

Voigt, three times a Tour de France stage winner, is joined in his team’s provisional line-up for the race, which begins in the Scottish Borders on 11 September, by the Australian Will Clarke, Germany’s Linus Gerdemann and Dominic Klemme, the Italian rider Giacomo Nizzolo and Denmark’s Martin Pedersen, winner of the 2005 edition of the Tour of Britain.

The Rabobank line-up will be led by multiple world track champion Theo Bos and also features Michael ‘Bling’ Matthews, the Australian who won the under-23 road race at the World Championships in Geelong last year. The rest of the team are all Dutch - Lars Boom, Rick Flens, Bram Tankink and Coen Vermeltfoort.

Europcar’s challenge will be led by Anthony Charteau, winner of the polka-dot jersey for topping the mountains classification at last year’s Tour de France. He is joined by Franck Bouyer, Damien Gaudin, Yohann Gene, Alexandre Pichot and – the only non-French rider – Japan’s Yukiya Arashiro.

Meanwhile the An Post Sean Kelly line-up features young British talents Andy Fenn and Mark McNally, plus the Lithuanian Gediminas Bagdonas, Pieter Ghyllebert of Belgium and two Irish riders, Sam Bennett and Ronan McLaughlin.

Race director Mick Bennett said: “This year’s Tour of Britain is building up to have our best field yet.”

“The fact that UCI World Tour teams like Rabobank and Leopard Trek are sending such strong line-ups speaks volumes about The Tour of Britain and how the race is continuing to go from strength-to-strength.

“With riders like Theo Bos, Thor Hushovd and other top sprinters contesting the sprints, I am sure that both the Yodel Sprints and Prostate Cancer Charity Points Jerseys will be hotly contested.”

Full details of the race can be found on the Tour of Britain website.