FDJ will head to the Vuelta a España without planned leader Sebastien Reichenbach, who has been suffering with a virus since the Tour de Suisse. Instead, the French team will chase stage wins with a youthful squad that was unveiled on Tuesday. Reichenbach is one Thibaut Pinot´s key mountain domestiques, and helped the Frenchman to fourth overall at this year´s Giro d´Italia, himself finishing 15th. While Pinot went to the Tour de France as a free agent in a team built around sprinter Arnaud Demare, Reichenbach was given the chance to play his own cards in the Vuelta, but has struggled to overcome the virus. After abandoning Tour de Suisse, he returned to action at the Tour de Pologne at the end of July but again failed to finish.ADVERTISEMENT `After the virus I contracted at the Tour de Suisse, I´ve not been able to recover well. I´d therefore prefer to miss the Vuelta a Espana,` he told Swiss newspaper, La Nouvelliste. Announcing the final line-up on Tuesday, the FDJ team hailed an `offensive team, free from any general classification objective` that it hopes can repeat the stage wins enjoyed in both the Giro and Tour earlier this season. For the flatter stages, the team will look to the trio of Anthony Roux, winner of a Vuelta stage back in 2009, Lorrenzo Manzin, who finished top-10 on four occasions in last year´s race, and Daniel Hoelgaard, one of three Grand Tour debutants in the line-up.
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