List of teams and cyclists in the 2012 Vuelta a España
The 2012 Vuelta a España was the 67th edition of the Vuelta a España, one of the cycling's Grand Tours. The Vuelta a España features 198 riders competing from 22 cycling teams; the race took place from 18 August to 9 September, starting in Pamplona and finishing in Madrid.
2012 Tour of Utah
In July, the Tour of Utah announced a 17-team field, made up of six ProTeams (up from five), five UCI Professional Continental teams (up from four) and six UCI Continental teams (down from seven), thus giving the race a total of 17 teams (up from 16). In total, eight of the 16 teams that competed in 2011 were invited to return to this event, as well as a ProTeam that merged into another ProTeam (RadioShack-Nissan-Trek) and a team that competed in 2010, but did not get a place in 2011 (Bontrager-Livestrong). EPM-UNE is based in Colombia, and four of the five Professional Continental teams are not US-based, coming from Canada, China, the Netherlands and Germany.
In addition to all of the last four champions of the race -- (Jeff Louder (UnitedHealthcare), Francisco Mancebo (Competitive Cyclist) and two-time defending champion Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-Quick Step)) -- the race included potential contenders Tom Danielson (Garmin), Christian Vande Velde (Garmin), David Zabriskie (Garmin) and Chris Horner (RadioShack-Nissan-Trek). The race was held during the 2012 Summer Olympics, and 11 current or former Olympians competed. Although each of the 17 teams was permitted to bring up to 8 starters (for a maximum of 136), the race included only 129 starters, because 3 of the ProTour teams (BMC, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, and Liquigas-Cannondale) brought only 6 and a fourth (Rabobank) brought only 7.