Not much has changed among the top teams in the World Tour. Two German teams will start with Bora-Hansgrohe and Sunweb. A total of 18 World Tour teams will start the Grand Tour. You can find all the nationalities of the 2019 World Tour pros and the teams here.
German pros in the 2019 World Tour
As last year, Bora-Hansgrohe will have the largest contingent of German riders: from sprint jewel Pascal Ackermann and tour hopefuls Emanuel Buchmann and Maximilian Schachmann to the reliable helpers Marcus Burghardt, Christoph Pfingsten, Andreas Schillinger, Michael Schwarzmann and Rüdiger Selig. The Dutch-dominated Équipe Sunweb, which has a German licence, is relying on a German sextet: Nikias Arndt, Johannes Fröhlinger, Lennard Kämna and Max Walscheid and the two neo-pros Max Kanter and Florian Storck for Team Sunweb.
John Degenkolb should once again deliver top results in the spring classics for Team Trek-Segafredo, Roger Kluge is an important part of the sprint train for new signing Caleb Ewan at Lotto Soudal, while Jasha Sütterlin wants to shine in his sixth year with the Spanish team Movistar, especially in the time trial. Here he will meet Tony Martin, who wants to give his career new impetus by switching to Jumbo-Visma with Paul Martens. The support squad includes Christian Knees for Sky, Simon Geschke and Jonas Koch for the Polish CCC Team, which has recently moved up to the World Tour, and Nico Denz for Team Ag2r La Mondiale.
Team Bahrain Merida is new territory for German riders, with sprinter Phil Bauhaus aiming to step out of the shadow of his long-time colleague Michael Matthews in 2019. He will be supported by Marcel Sieberg, who will no longer be riding in a team with André Greipel for the first time. Greipel has switched to the second-division team Arkéa-Samsic. After various departures, Katusha-Alpecin now has just three German riders: Marcel Kittel, who was mostly unlucky in 2018, last year's discovery Nils Politt and sprint rider Rick Zabel.
With 52, Belgium has the most of the 477 professionals in the highest licence category. Germany is in seventh place with 26 professionals. All riders who have signed a contract with a World Tour team for 2019 are included here
All World Tour teams 2019
Below you will find an overview of the World Tour teams with the most important riders in each team (total number of professionals per team in brackets):
Team AG2R La Mondiale: (France)
Romain Bardet, Alexis Vuillermoz (29)
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Team Astana: (Kazakhstan)
Jakob Fuglsang, Miguel Angel Lopez, Luis Leon Sanchez (28)
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Team Bahrain-Merida: (Bahrain)
Rohan Dennis, Matej Mohoric, Vincenzo Nibali (25)
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Team Bora-Hansgrohe: (Germany)
Pascal Ackermann, Emanuel Buchmann, Rafal Majka, Peter Sagan (27)
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Team CCC: (Poland)
Simon Geschke, Stefan Denifl, Greg Van Avermaet (23)
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Team Deceuninck-Quick-Step: (Belgium)
ulian Alaphilippe, Philippe Gilbert, Elia Viviani (24)
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Team Dimension Data: (South Africa)
Mark Cavendish, Enrico Gasparotto, R. Kreuziger, Michael Valgren (27)
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Team EF Education First-Drapac: (USA)
Rigoberto Uran, Tejay van Garderen, Sep Vanmarcke (28)
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Team Groupama-FDJ: (France)
Arnaud Demare, Thibaut Pinot (28)
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Team Jumbo-Visma: (Netherlands)
Dylan Groenewegen, Steven Kruiswijk, Tony Martin, Primoz Roglic (27)
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Team Katusha-Alpecin: (Switzerland)
Marcel Kittel, Simon Spilak (24)
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Team Lotto-Soudal: (Belgium)
Tiesj Benoot, Victor Campenaerts, Caleb Ewan, Tim Wellens (29)
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Team Mitchelton-Scott: (Australia)
Esteban Chaves, Matteo Trentin, Adam Yates, Simon Yates (26)
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Team Movistar: (Spain)
Mikel Landa, Nairo Quintana, Marc Soler, Alejandro Valverde (25)
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Team Sky: (Great Britain)
Chris Froome, Michal Kwiatkowski, Geraint Thomas (28)
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Team Sunweb: (Germany)
Tom Dumoulin, Michael Matthews (25)
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Team Trek-Segafredo: (USA)
John Degenkolb, Bauke Mollema, Richie Porte, Jasper Stuyven (25)
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Team UAE Emirates: (United Arab Emirates)
Fabio Aru, Fernando Gaviria, Alexander Kristoff, Daniel Martin (29)
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