Tour de Korea

The Tour de Korea is an annual professional road bicycle racing stage race held in South Korea since 2000 as part of the UCI Asia Tour. It was rated by the International Cycling Union (UCI) as a 2.2 category race between 2005 and 2013, then promoted to 2.1 category in 2014. The race is organised by the Korea Cycling Federation.

Tour de Korea
Race details
DateApril (until 2012)
June (since 2013)
RegionSouth Korea
English nameTour of Korea
Local name(s)투르 드 코리아 (in Korean)
DisciplineRoad
CompetitionUCI Asia Tour 2.1
TypeStage race
OrganiserKorea Cycling Federation
Web sitewww.tourdekorea.or.kr
History
First edition2000 (2000)
Editions20 (as of 2019)
First winner Mikhail Teteriuk (KAZ)
Most wins Park Sung-baek (KOR) (2 wins)
Most recent Filippo Zaccanti (ITA)

History

The tour gained international attention when Lance Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France winner, participated in 2007. Armstrong, having retired from cycling at that time, did not compete, but for the sake of publicity, he rode one lap around the course of the first stage on his mountain bicycle.

Tour de Korea is the only international cycling competition in South Korea. The predecessor to Tour de Korea was stopped in 1997 due to financial strains. Tour de Korea is divided into two divisions: Elite for invitees and competitive cyclists, and a "Special race" for cycling club teams. The prize money for the 2011 tour totaled 200 million Won.

The tour course is 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) long, making it the longest cycling competition in Asia.

The tour comprises exclusively point-to-point road race stages. Unlike the major tours in Europe, such as the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia, there are no individual time trials or team time trials. The tour was planned this way reportedly because the promoters wanted to minimise time and effort spent in recording and sorting race results.

Past winners
Year Country Rider Team
2000  Kazakhstan Mikhail Teteriuk
2001  South Korea Jeon Dae-heung
2002  China Tang Xuezhong Giant Asia Racing Team
2003  New Zealand Glen Chadwick Giant Asia Racing Team
2004  Canada Cory Lange Marco Polo
2005  Ireland David McCann Giant Asia Racing Team
2006  Germany Tobias Erler Giant Asia Racing Team
2007  South Korea Park Sung-baek Seoul Cycling Team
2008  Uzbekistan Sergey Lagutin Uzbekistan (national team)
2009   Switzerland Roger Beuchat Team Neotel
2010  United States Mike Friedman Jelly Belly–Kenda
2011  Hong Kong Choi Ki Ho Hong Kong (national team)
2012  South Korea Park Sung-baek KSPO
2013  Great Britain Michael Cuming Rapha Condor–JLT
2014  Great Britain Hugh Carthy Rapha Condor–JLT
2015  Australia Caleb Ewan Orica–GreenEDGE
2016  Slovenia Grega Bole Nippo–Vini Fantini
2017  South Korea Min Kyeong-ho Seoul Cycling Team
2018  Romania Serghei Țvetcov UnitedHealthcare
2019[1]  Italy Filippo Zaccanti Nippo–Vini Fantini–Faizanè
2020 No race due to the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea[2]

References
  1. "Nippo Vini Fantani Faizanè: Filippo Zaccanti wins the Tour de Korea. #OrangeBlue also awarded as the best team". Nippo–Vini Fantini–Faizanè. STC PRO Srl. 16 June 2019. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  2. "Situation dans le contexte actuel de la pandémie du coronavirus (Covid-19) / Situation in the current context of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic" (PDF). UCI.org. Union Cycliste Internationale. 13 July 2020. p. 12. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
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