Four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome is heading to the Czech Tour
Froome has triumphed four times in the overall Tour de France and has twice dominated the other pair of Grand Tours - the Vuelta and the Giro d'Italia.
"This is fantastic news, Chris is a cycling icon and his participation in the Czech Tour is a unique opportunity for our fans to see him in the Czech Republic," said race director Leopold König, Froome's former Team Sky teammate.
"I'm really looking forward to racing in the Czech Republic for the first time at the Czech Tour. It's great to reunite with my former teammate Leo König, who won the Tour de France with me in 2015, and to see the race he now runs. I've had a good training block and I'm ready to start the second part of the season with four hard days," said Froome.
The Czech Tour will offer great competition this year, with three World Tour squads among the 21 teams: BORA - hansgrohe, Intermarché - Circus - Wanty and Jumbo-Visma. There will be no shortage of top Czech riders either. The cyclists will have four hard days ahead of them, with the royal stage scheduled for Saturday, when the riders will have to climb almost 3,500 vertical metres.
Czech Tour 2023
Stage 1 - 27th July: Prostějov - Uničov, 165 km / 2,217 vertical metres
Stage 2 - 28th July: Olomouc - Pustevny, 167.5 km / 2,840 vertical metres
Stage 3 - 29th July: Moravská Třebová - Červenohorské sedlo, 161.5 km / 3 404 vertical metres
Stage 4 - 30th July: Šumperk - Šternberk, 176.2 km / 2,982 vertical metres