Great Britain's three-time Tour de France winner will be part of the Team Sky outfit heading to the six-stage event, which is part of the International Cycling Union’s World Tour and will see riders from 19 teams battle for the title, with the overall winners to be crowned on Sunday (April 30).

Froome has previously won the competition in Switzerland twice, in 2013 and 2014, along with picking up a stage victory last year.

A three mile prologue in the town of Aigle will be the first stage before the cyclists head to Champery the following day on a hilly stage.

On Thursday (April 27), the peloton will go to Bulle for a 100.2 mile-long mountain stage.

This will be followed by a 116.2 mile flat leg in Payerne before riders tackle more mountains between Domdidier and Leysin, a distance of 101.6 miles.

Action will conclude with a 11.4 mile time trial in Lausanne.

Last year's winner, Colombia’s Nairo Quintana, will not feature this time round after not being named in the Movistar team.

However, the points, mountains and youth title winners from 2016 will also be involved again.

Orica-Scott rider Michael Albasini will be looking to retain the green jersey in front of a home crowd and comes into the Tour after coming seventh at the Liège-Bastogne-Liège yesterday.

Belgium’s Sandar Armee is the reigning mountains champion and is part of the Lotto Soudal team.

Pierre Latour of France, who claimed the youth title last year, is also heading to Switzerland, where he will be part of the AG2R team at the event.

Other teams sending riders to the Tour include BMC, BORA-Hansgrohe and Quick-Step.

Astana will also be racing three days after one of their riders, Michele Scarponi, was tragically killed during a training session in his native Italy.