Cofidis have announced their Tour de France roster and will head into La Grande Boucle with a focus on both the GC and stage wins. Rein Taaramae and Daniel Navarro will be the team's GC riders, sprinter Adrien Petit will make his Tour debut and Julien Simon, Nicolas Edet, Rudy Molard, Egoitz Garcia and Luis Angel Mate will try to take a win in the harder stages.

Last year Cofidis went into the Tour de France with no less than four GC riders but the race ended as a huge disappointment. After a very anonymous performance by the entire team, Rein Taaramae, Jerome Coppel and Christophe Le Mevel were all far off the mark in the overall standings and only a brave attack in one of the final mountain stages allowed Daniel Navarro to move into the top 10 in the overall standings.

This year the team hopes to improve on last year's performance and yesterday they narrowed their 13-rider preselection down to the 9 riders that will be at the start in Leeds later this week. Compared to last year, the number of GC riders has been whittled down as Coppel and Le Mevel are among the four riders to have been left off the roster.

Navarro will be back, trying to improve on last year's 9th. In 2014 he has raced less than usual to be fresh for a heavy second part of the season that will include a Tour-Vuelta double. After a poor spring, he showed improving condition by finishing 9th in the Dauphiné.

Taaramae is one of the dark horses for this year's Tour. In 2012 the Estonian proved that he is able to follow the very best in the mountains but since then he has suffered from an illness that he thought was related to allergy. In March, he had surgery to fix the problem and he immediately returned to form by winning the queen stage of the Tour of Turkey. He performed poorly in the Dauphiné but if he can find back to his former level, he could be one of the surprises in this year's race.

In the mountains, Taaramae and Le Mevel can count on support from Luis Angel Mate, Rudy Molard and Nicolas Edet who won the mountains jersey in last year's Vuelta. All riders are aggressive riders that are likely to chase a stage win from a breakaway.

Julien Simon has had a great first season with Cofidis and seems to be back at his 2012 level. As a puncheur, he will find lots of stages to his liking during the three weeks in France. Egoitz Garcia is another fast rider who can target success from breakaways.

In the bunch sprints, the team will count on Adrien Petit who be making his Tour de France debut. He can count on support from another fast rider, Cyril Lemoine, who completes the roster in his first year with the team.

The surprise omission from the roster is Coppel but the Frenchman has shown no sign of form.

"Jerome's results are inconsistent," manager Yvon Sanquer said. "For him, it is better to rest and prepare for the Vuelta."

In addition to Le Mevel and Coppel, climber Yoann Bagot and Belgian Romain Zingle both missed out on selection.

Cofidis for the Tour de France:

Rein Taaramae, Daniel Navarro, Luis Angel Mate, Rudy Molard, Nicolas Edet, Julien Simon, Egoitz Garcia, Adrien Petit and Cyril Lemoine