The organisation of the Giro d’Italia Internazionale Women Elite, or Giro Rosa, has chosen the 24 teams that will be part of the 2016 edition, which runs from July 1st to 10th July.

As the Giro Rosa is part of the 2016 Women’s WorldTour, 15 UCI teams have received an automatic invite to start in this race. Twelve teams have accepted that invite, with Orica-AIS the biggest team missing. Orica-rider Annemiek van Vleuten has won the Giro Rosa prologue in the last two years, so the team’s absence from this race is striking.

Other automatic invitees that won’t ride the Giro Rosa are Team Tibco-SVB and United Healthcare.

The twelve teams that did take up the Giro Rosa organisers on their automatic invite are Boels-Dolmans (that will take to the start with current Women’s WorldTour leader Lizzie Armitstead), Wiggle-High5, Rabo-Liv, Canyon-SRAM, Cervélo-Bigla, Team Hitec, Cylance Pro Cycling, Team Liv-Plantur, PC Futuroscope, BTC City Ljubljana, BePink and Astana.

Italy will be the most represented country with, in addition to BePink, another six teams participating: Alé Cipollini, Aromitalia-Vaiano-Fondriest, Inpa-Bianchi, Servetto-Footon, SC Michela Fanini and Top Girls Fassa Bortolo.

The field is completed with Team Hagens Berman/Supermint, Bizkaia Durango, Lotto-Soudal Ladies, Lensworld-Zannata, Team Lointek and Xirayas de San Luis.

Each team can line up six athletes at the big start in Gaiarine on July 1st. A preliminary start list is already available on the new Giro Rosa website.