{"id":400434,"date":"2026-01-31T10:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T10:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/400434\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T10:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T10:44:11","slug":"the-inner-ring-tour-de-france-wildcards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/400434\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inner Ring | Tour de France Wildcards"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Caja Rural get the last wildcard invite to the Tour de France and the Unibet Rose Rockets are left out. It\u2019s a surprise but once you look at the trend it shouldn\u2019t be a shock.<\/p>\n

Q36.5, Tudor and Cofidis all take up their automatic invitations. Which leaves two places. TotalEnergies always felt like a certainty for one of the last two spots. They had a top-10 on GC thanks to Jordan Jegat last summer, a stage win the year before; the team isn\u2019t just French it\u2019s got a local identity from the Vend\u00e9e including political backing; Jean-Ren\u00e9 Bernaudeau talks a good game, they need the lifeline for a team needing a replacement sponsor\u2026 and new for this year Total also becomes a partner sponsor of the Tour. They were always going to get an invite.<\/p>\n

The controversy comes with Caja Rural vs. the Unibet Rose Rockets. Now Caja Rural are Spanish and the Barcelona grand d\u00e9part helped but even Spanish TV commentary filling the time while Remco Evenepoel was away solo in today\u2019s Challenge Majorca race evoked una pol\u00e9mica.<\/p>\n

In a statement to AFP<\/a> Tour boss Christian Prudhomme cited the UCI rankings with the Spanish team\u00a0 in 25th spot ahead of the Rockets in 2026th. But this is far from an iron rule. At random let\u2019s take 2020 when Vital Concept was picked while it was in lurking in 26th place on the UCI tables and while teams like Delko, Wanty and Uno-X were ranked higher but left out.<\/p>\n

Neither Caja Rural nor the Rockets feature a \u201cmust have\u201d rider. The Rockets have Dylan Groenewegen is 32 while Caja\u2019s sprinter is Fernando Gaviria aged 31. Victor Lafay could be a great signing for the Rockets and has one of best power-weight ratios in the peloton on 5-10 minute climbs, see how only he surged up the \u201cC\u00f4te de Pike\u201d on the way to Bilbao in th the Tour de France\u2019s opening stage and only Poga\u010dar and Vinegaard could follow but he has struggled to follow-up with injuries so right now it\u2019s hard to count on him. The Rocket\u2019s Luk\u00e1\u0161 Kubi\u0161 almost made this blog\u2019s Riders to Watch<\/a> but as a crafty rider in smaller races rather than someone likely to win at the Tour; similarly Caja Rural have Abel Balderstone, the Spanish TT champion \u2013 the course was uphill \u2013 who finished a creditable 13th in the last Vuelta. Again some prospects but nobody incontournable as Prudhomme might say.<\/p>\n

Prudhomme also said the Rockets don\u2019t lean into their French identity much. They switched from Dutch to French as a flag of convenience to avoid a gambling sponsorship ban in the Netherlands and their French address is a corporate mailbox rather than a service course HQ. But they\u2019ve been regulars in the Coupe de France series at a time when Decathlon and Groupama-FDJ have been grumbling about their obligation to race these smaller events, and even hiring last year\u2019s winner Cl\u00e9ment Venturini as well as taking on French neo-pros. If they need to be more French perhaps the Rocket\u2019s next video could have them in hi-viz riding a tractor to ASO\u2019s offices to beat the office doors down with stale baguettes?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Rocket\u2019s selling point is communication and they quickly produce videos to share content in an age when many teams still issue text press releases. It\u2019s refreshing and should encourage other teams to interact more with their fan base but it\u2019s not a big swing factor; the Tour will hardly get extra coverage. The old Vital Concept\/B&B Hotels did this before too \u2013 anyone remember the video announcing the signing of Pierre Rolland involving a aircraft and a beach? It has gone down with the team \u2013 but it didn\u2019t help. Again having star riders likely to shape the race and add to the show makes the big difference.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nevermind July
If you\u2019re surprised but the news today, look beyond the Tour. Because the Rockets have not got invitations to ASO\u2019s other races either. Paris-Nice? Non. Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge? Non plus. The D\u0336a\u0336u\u0336p\u0336h\u0336i\u0336n\u0336\u00e9\u0336 Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes? Rien. The Volta a Catalunya? No senyor. There\u2019s only Fl\u00e8che Wallonne and no news on Paris-Roubaix yet and maybe they get one here after taking part last year. For a team that wants to convince ASO there are few chances to put on a show under their noses. It feels different to the way ASO nurtured the likes of NetApp or Uno-X too; even if Uno-X didn\u2019t get a Caja Rural-style boost when the Tour opened in Copenhagen in 2022.<\/p>\n

In the meantime Caja Rural have an invite to the Dauphin\u00e9, Li\u00e8ge, Fl\u00e8che and Catalunya and have been assiduously starting other ASO races like the Tour of Oman and the Al Ula Tour on right now. Once you start to see this the wildcard choice might be debatable on sporting terms but the Spanish team has cultivated a rapport with ASO that the Rockets hasn\u2019t begun yet.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in Spain
The Vuelta invites are out today and here Kern Pharma and Burgos-Burgpellet-BH are invited as the race rotates its domestic teams and obviously Caja Rural being left out is less of a blow since they\u2019ll be on TV in July.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in Italy
There\u2019s no news on the Giro invitations despite the start being less than 100 days away. Towns are illumating landmarks in pink but we don\u2019t know all the teams that will take part.<\/p>\n

With Cofidis reportedly declining to take up their invitation this would leave three places. Bardiani and Polti-Malta arecertainties but the remaining place? There\u2019s been talk of a Spanish team but equally the Rockets could slot in here and for a relatively new team a grand tour debut here could be a more patient route. Perhaps they\u2019ve even agreed this already and so it suits everyone as two consecutive grand tours would be too much? A plausible hypothesis for a few seconds. But given the Tour can generate 70-80% of a team\u2019s media exposure the theory doesn\u2019t hold. Still the team can hope for an invitation in May.<\/p>\n

Conclusion
Last month Paris-Nice only invited TotalEnergies when it could have taken another team. This gave us a clue for the Rockets. That\u2019s not hindsight, loyal readers will have read their chances of a Tour wildcard went \u201cfrom very likely to probably<\/a>\u201c. Since then their chances got slimmer with no other invites from ASO. Only yesterday they were left out of the Dauphin\u00e9<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Caja Rural getting the last invite ahead of the Rockets is a surprise but step back and look at the trend of zero invites for the Franco-Dutch team and it should not be a shock, more so as it\u2019s the Spanish team that has kept benefitting from wildcards to the Ardennes and Dauphin\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Which ProTeam does this or that isn\u2019t big news, neither Caja Rural nor Rockets would turn the tables at the Tour. But there is interest as it involves choices. With the top-18 WorldTeams acting as settled franchises as long as they can find enough funding, the second tier has more room for sporting appeal, rankings, communication, identity and other subjective criteria.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see for the Giro, the Rockets could still get a start. And looking ahead there\u2019s every chance they\u2019ll be at the Tour in 2027 because if Total Energies takes a place this year there\u2019s no news on a replacement title sponsor and so the French squad may not be around next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caja Rural get the last wildcard invite to the Tour de France and the Unibet Rose Rockets are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-400434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}