One month before the start of the Tour de France on July 4 in Utrecht, general manager Emmanuel Hubert and the staff of team Bretagne-Séché Environnement have announced three more names for the Tour de France roster. They are Brice Feillu, Arnaud Gerard and Florian Vachon. 

These three riders join the trio (Pierrick Fedrigo, Eduardo Sepulveda and Anthony Delaplace) that had already been selected on 4 May. That leaves three spots to be filled. Brice Feillu who turns 30 on the final day of the Tour, do play his fifth Tour de France. He was the revelation in 2009 when he won the Pyrenees stage to Arcalis. But he got his best result last year when he was16th in Paris. This season he finished 8th in the Four Days of Dunkirk.

Arnaud Gerard, 30, will do his third Tour de France after 2008 and 2014 and his sixth grand Tour. Last year he was in two long breakaways in the stages to Reims and Bergerac respectively. He finished 11th in the Four Days of Dunkirk.

Florian Vachon, 30, will do his second Tour de France. Last year he was one of five debutants in theBretagne team and showed himself in the stage to Saint-Etienne and the one to Luchon where he was 12th.  This season he finished 6th place in the Tro Bro Leon and 9th in the Four Days of Dunkirk.

"I am pleased to be selected for the Tour to one month before the start," Feillu said. "I know what I needs to do to get there in the necessary condition, not necessarily one hundred percent from the start, but close to my best. My 16th place last year does not necessarily put pressure on me. Of course I hope to do better. But I can also be asked to support Eduardo (Sepulveda) if he is well-placed overall. I can also focus on a few stages."

"I am a Breton, I wear the colors of my region and the Tour will spend three days in Brittany," Gerard. "It is very satisfying to be selected. But I appreciate the confidence of all of Emmanuel Hubert and the staff. The team has stepped up a notch this year. It is rewarding to be part of a first selection of six riders for the Tour. To come back last year, six years after my first experience, I could appreciate what the Tour offers for the rest of the season. I was super good in August. And even if I have lacked some results this year, I feel it helped me to improve again."

"It is important to feel the confidence of Emmanuel Hubert and the staff," Vachon said. "I am pleased with the thought of doing my second Tour de France. The experience of last year will be very useful, especially to better understand the size of the event. In 2014, I really had the impression of being below my best level in the first ten days before I got better. I should know how to better manage my efforts by making better choices.

"This season Brice was frustrated by health problems, back pain that kept him away from competition during the entire month of March, but he is well back in the rhythm," Hubert said. "Then it is impossible not to select him, given his sixteenth place in Paris last year. If he is prepared in the way he should, we will have two real cards in the mountains: Eduardo Sepulveda and him.

"Arnaud has experience in grand tours and now, at 30, he is as an essential part of the team by his ability to analyze the race and his ability to feel the moments when we need to be with our protected riders. Although he has not achieved great results from the beginning of the season, he is one of our pillars.

"Florian started his 2015 season below his usual level but during the last few weeks he has felt stronger. He has been more and more in the front end since late April, and I want to believe that his first Tour de France last year brought him a volume and confidence he didn't have before. He also remains our road captain. He could play his personal card in July in the rolling stages."

That leaves three place in Bretagne-Séché Environnement for the Tour de France. They will be awarded no later than on the evening after the French road race championships in Chantonnay. Seven candidates remain in contention: Frédéric Brun, Romain Feillu, Armindo Fonseca, Florian Guillou, Yauheni Hutarovich, Christophe Laborie and Pierre-Luc Périchon.

As opposed to this, two of the nine riders who rode (and finished) the Tour last year with the BSE team are not on the list, Jean-Marc Bideau and Benoit Jarrier. 

"Jean-Marc is not yet recovered from the effects of his bout of mononucleosis and this still prevents him from exercising his profession properly. And Benoit suffered in the Tour last year. He is more of a rider for one-day races. We prefer to rely one hundred percent on him in the beginning and the end of the season ," said Emmanuel Hubert.