Tour de Yorkshire

The Tour de Yorkshire is a road cycling race in the historic county of Yorkshire, England which started in May 2015. It is promoted by the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) and is rated as a 2.HC event as part of the UCI Europe Tour. From 2015 to 2017 it was a three-day race but in 2018 it expanded to four days, starting on Thursday 3 May and finishing on Sunday 6 May.[1] The race will become part of the new UCI ProSeries in 2020.

This article is about the men's race. For the women's race, see Women's Tour de Yorkshire.

Tour de Yorkshire
Race details
DateApril/May
RegionYorkshire, England, UK
DisciplineRoad
CompetitionUCI Europe Tour
TypeStage race
OrganiserAmaury Sport Organisation/Welcome to Yorkshire
Web siteletour.yorkshire.com
History
First edition2015 (2015)
Editions5 (as of 2019)
First winner Lars Petter Nordhaug (NOR)
Most recent Chris Lawless (GBR)

The idea for the race arose as a legacy event following the significant success of the visit of the 2014 Tour de France to the county. The first two stages of the 2014 Tour, also organised by ASO, from Leeds to Harrogate, and York to Sheffield, were nicknamed Le Tour de Yorkshire.[2]

To date, the race has always taken place in the days before the May Day bank holiday (which in Britain is on the first Monday in May).

History

2015
Main article: 2015 Tour de Yorkshire

Taking place from 1–3 May, the route was Bridlington–Scarborough, Selby–York, and Wakefield–Leeds.

The overall winner was Lars Petter Nordhaug of Team Sky. Samuel Sánchez (BMC Racing Team) was second and Thomas Voeckler (Team Europcar) was third. Nordhaug also won the points classification and Team Sky won the teams classification. The mountains classification was won by Nicolas Edet (Cofidis).

2016
Main article: 2016 Tour de Yorkshire

This took place from 29 April–1 May (British Cycling had rejected an application by the organisers Welcome to Yorkshire and ASO to increase the race to four days for 2016[3]), and the route was Beverley–Settle, Otley–Doncaster, and Middlesbrough–Scarborough.

2017
Main article: 2017 Tour de Yorkshire
The peloton passes through Wetherby, West Yorkshire on the second day of the 2017 tour.

The 2017 Tour was on 28–30 April, with starting or finishing places of Bradford, Bridlington, Harrogate, Scarborough, Sheffield and Tadcaster.[4] It was later announced the route would be Bridlington–Scarborough, Tadcaster–Harrogate and Bradford–Sheffield with the women's race on the Tadcaster–Harrogate section.[5]

2018
Main article: 2018 Tour de Yorkshire

The tour was extended to four days running from Thursday 3 May to Sunday 6 May.[1] On 28 September 2017, the start and finish points of the stages were announced as Barnsley, Beverley, Doncaster, Halifax, Ilkley, Leeds, Richmond, and Scarborough.[6] It was later announced that the stages would be Beverley–Doncaster, Barnsley–Ilkley, Richmond–Scarborough and Halifax–Leeds, the women's race would be on part of the first two stages.[7] It is estimated that this year's event bought in £98 million to the Yorkshire economy.[8]

2019
Main article: 2019 Tour de Yorkshire

In October 2018, it was announced that Barnsley, Bedale, Bridlington, Doncaster, Halifax, Leeds, Scarborough and Selby would all be either start or finish points for the stages in the tour of 2019. At the same time, it was revealed that Redcar would be a host town in 2020.[9]

In the same month, the world governing body for the sport (UCI), announced that the TdY had been upgraded to HC status, the highest status for a multi-stage race which is not part of the world tour. Sir Gary Verity, the race organiser and chair of Welcome to Yorkshire said

That's a great honour for us to get the upgrade to HC, that's one below world tour status. To have hors categorie for our race, there are not many races in the world that in such a short space of time have gone from not existing to getting HC status. That's almost unprecedented so we're really, really pleased about that.[10]

In December 2018, the stages were announced as running from Thursday 2 May to Sunday 5 May 2019; Doncaster–Selby (stage one; The Heritage Stage), Barnsley–Bedale (stage two; The World Stage), Bridlington–Scarborough (stage three; The Yorkshire Coast) and Halifax–Leeds (stage four; The Yorkshire Classic). The women's stages would be Barnsley–Bedale (stage one) and Bridlington–Scarborough (stage two).[11][12]

2020

The TdY in 2020 will run from 30 April to 3 May.[13] Scarborough will not host either a start to, or a finish of a race, something which it has done since the inception of TdY in 2015. Scarborough Council decided not to bid to be a host town as it will be hosting the Armed Forces day in June 2020.[14] The start or finish locations were announced on 22 November 2019 as Barnsley, Beverley, Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Leyburn, Redcar and Skipton.[15]

The stages were announced on 17 January 2020, Beverley to Redcar, Skipton to Leyburn, Barnsley to Huddersfield and Halifax to Leeds.[16]

It was announced in March 2020, that due to the coronavirus outbreak in the United Kingdom, the TdY for 2020 would be postponed.[17]

Impact

The Tour de Yorkshire has had a significant benefit to Yorkshire in terms of monetary gain and exposure to the world. In 2015 it generated £50 million for the Yorkshire economy, £60 million in 2016, £64 million in 2017, £98 million in 2018,[18] and £60 million in 2019.[19] It was estimated that the broadcast coverage of the event in 2017 was viewed by 9.7 million people across the world[20] with over 2 million spectators lining the route.[21]

The 2018 Tour attracted crowds of about 2.6 million people, something which The Times estimated to be the largest spectator event in the United Kingdom.[22] The spectators who lined the route spent 54% more on hospitality than on the previous TdY from 2017.[23] Welcome to Yorkshire was reported to be in talks with the organisers of the Vuelta, in the hope to bring that road cycling event to Yorkshire in the future. During its 80-year history, the event has only held a stage outside of Spain three times before.[22]

Winners
Year Country Rider Team
2015  Norway Lars Petter Nordhaug Team Sky
2016  France Thomas Voeckler Direct Énergie
2017  Belgium Serge Pauwels Team Dimension Data
2018  Belgium Greg Van Avermaet BMC Racing Team
2019  Great Britain Chris Lawless Team Ineos
2020 No race due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
gollark: It is also really hard to actually paperweighten your computer; you can just boot off a new USB.
gollark: Apparently the main limitation is display technology right now, since it's difficult to make something which is nice to look at, doesn't block too much of the incoming natural light, and has a wide FoV.
gollark: I'm somewhat annoyed that consumer AR glasses still haven't happened.
gollark: In efficiency here or in general?
gollark: Even a 1Mbps upload speed is good enough to transfer 70GB of files a week, so it's fine if you're not particularly concerned about up to the minute backups.

See also

References
  1. "Tour de Yorkshire extends to four day race". BBC News. BBC. 21 September 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2017.
  2. "Le Tour de Yorkshire". BBC News. 5 July 2014. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  3. "Tour de Yorkshire: British Cycling rejects plans for fourth day". BBC Sport. 18 September 2015. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
  4. "Tour de Yorkshire host towns unveiled". BBC News. BBC. 25 October 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2016.
  5. "Tour de Yorkshire 2017: Race will start in Bridlington and finish in Sheffield". BBC Sport. BBC. 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  6. "Eight areas selected to host 2018 Tour de Yorkshire". BBC News. BBC. 28 September 2017. Retrieved 28 September 2017.
  7. "Tour de Yorkshire 2018: Mark Cavendish wants to compete in four-day race". BBC Sport. BBC. 5 December 2017. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  8. "Tour De Yorkshire Boosts County's Economy By £98 Million". Yorkshire Coast Radio. 10 July 2018. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  9. "Tour de Yorkshire host venues revealed". BBC News. 4 October 2018. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  10. "Tour de Yorkshire upgraded by UCI ahead of 2019 race". ITV News. 4 October 2018. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
  11. "Tour de Yorkshire 2019 will include World Road Race circuit". BBC Sport. 7 December 2018. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
  12. Wilson, Pete. "Tour de Yorkshire 2019 routes announced in Leeds | Tour de Yorkshire - 2 - 5 May 2019". letour.yorkshire.com. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
  13. Ostanek, Daniel (11 October 2019). "Dates announced for the 2020 Tour of Britain". Cycling News. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  14. Gavaghan, Carl (13 November 2019). "Scarborough won't be hosting 2020 Tour de Yorkshire". York Press. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  15. "Tour de Yorkshire 2020 host venues revealed". BBC News. BBC. 22 November 2019. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
  16. "Tour de Yorkshire 2020 route revealed with more climbing than ever". BBC News. BBC. 17 January 2020. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  17. "Coronavirus: Tour de Yorkshire 2020 postponed because of pandemic". BBC Sport. 17 March 2020. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
  18. Gullon, Nick (5 October 2018). "Tour de Yorkshire host towns revealed". Darlington & Stockton Times (40–2018). p. 8. ISSN 2516-5348.
  19. Fox, Alexa (11 July 2019). "Record-breaking cycle races promote 'world class' region". Darlington & Stockton Times (28–2019). p. 6. ISSN 2516-5348.
  20. Foster, Mark (7 July 2017). "Cycle race injects a huge £64m into local economy". Darlington & Stockton Times (27–2017). p. 4. ISSN 2040-3933.
  21. "Yorkshire Tour Route Revealed". Darlington & Stockton Times (2017–49). 8 December 2017. p. 22. ISSN 2040-3933.
  22. Westerby, John (7 May 2018). "Yorkshire targets La Vuelta as 2.6m people line the streets". The Times (72528). p. 59. ISSN 0140-0460.
  23. Behrens, David (10 July 2018). "Spectators spend 50pc more as Tour de Yorkshire riders go past". The Yorkshire Post. p. 8. ISSN 0963-1496.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.