Image 1 of 3 Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) (Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com) Image 2 of 3 The Chicken Man cheers on Peter Stetina (Trek-Segafredo) (Image credit: Jonathan Devich/epicimages.us) Image 3 of 3 Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) (Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

The Trek-Segafredo team have begun announcing their nine-rider team for this year's 2016 Tour de France via Twitter. They revealed the first three riders on Saturday that include climbers Bauke Mollema and Peter Stetina, and Classics specialist Jasper Stuyven.

Mollema will lead the team’s general classification aspirations at this year’s Tour, as he looks to crack the top three overall in Paris. The Dutch rider has been a contender in the Grand Tours during his career. Last year he was seventh at the Tour, but he was also tenth in 2014 and sixth in 2013. He has also placed fourth overall at the Vuelta a España (2011) and 12th at the Giro d’Italia (2010).

He will rely on help from fellow climber Stetina, who recently showed his progress in form at the Amgen Tour of California in May, where he started the race as the team's GC leader and was second on the queen stage summit finish on Gibraltar Rd.

The American came back from a serious leg injury sustained in a crash at País Vasco last year when he hit a street bollard that wasn’t marked on the race course. It has taken a year of rehabilitation for him to get back to top form and he is still looking to improve on that before the start of the Tour de France.

Stuyvens, who will make his Tour de France debut, is a specialist in the spring Classics and one-day races. He is an asset to the team as a domestique. He’s shown top form this year with a win at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, ninth at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, fifth at E3 Harelebeke and he raced at Dubai Tour, Volta ao Algarve, Tirreno-Adriatico, Tour of California and the recent Tour de Suisse, in support of his teammates.

It is widely assumed that Fabian Cancellara will also be on the Tour de France team, in his last run at the French Grand Tour. Read our recent feature highlighting his storied career at the Tour de France.

The next round of three riders will be revealed on Twitter on Sunday.

Trek-Segafredo roster so far for the 2016 Tour de France: Fabian Cancellara, Bauke Mollema, Peter Stetina and Jasper Stuyvens.