After some teams in the WorldTour confirmed they would go back on their previous agreement not to ride the World’s Team Time Trial event, Tinkoff, who are ceasing to exist at the season’s conclusion, are the first top tier team to confirm they will skip the race.

"Tinkoff will skip the Worlds TTT because the cost of the event will be borne by the team and the cost-benefit evaluation doesn't justify such an expense," team communications director Pierre Orphanidis confirmed to Cyclingnews in an email on Thursday.

Initially, all 18 top tier teams were due to skip the race, but after some negotiation from the UCI, 10 of the team’s will take the start.

Tinkoff DS Tristan Hoffman further explained the team’s decision to Het Nieuwsblad recently.

"There are no points to pick up pick up, it costs lots of money to travel to Qatar with all the material, staff, riders and so on," he said. "Moreover, the race is at the end of the season. The latter is probably the most decisive. There are no prizes to win at the world championship. On the one hand it is of course very unfortunate because a team time trial is a great discipline," Hoffman told Het Nieuwsblad. "But I understand the whole thing. This decision was taken from above."

The ten teams expected to ride are BMC Racing, AG2R La Mondiale, Astana, Etixx-Quick Step, Movistar, Orica-BikeExchange, Giant-Alpecin, Katusha, LottoNL-Jumbo and Team Sky.

Joining Tinkoff in skipping the race are Dimension Data, FDJ, Trek-Segafredo, Lotto-Soudal, Lampre-Merida, Cannondale-Drapac and IAM.