Eighteen teams were invited to take part in the race. Eight of these were
UCI Continental teams.[2] The WorldTeam Etixx–Quick-Step, which had won eight of the previous ten editions, including the 2015 edition with Niki Terpstra, was not invited. Although Wilfried Peeters, a directeur sportif with the team, had suggested that the team had chosen not to take part for sporting reasons, it was suggested in the days before the race that the president of the Qatar Cycling Federation, Sheikh Khalid Bin Ali Al-Thani, had declined to invite the team because riders had failed to attend podium ceremonies promptly after winning stages in previous editions.[3]