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

The Tour de Yorkshire is a road cycling race in the historic county of Yorkshire, England which first took place 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.

The idea for the race arose as a legacy event following the 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.[1] From 2015 to 2017 it was a three-day race but in 2018 it expanded to four days.[2] The race took place in the days before the May Day bank holiday which, in Britain, is on the first Monday in May. The race was to become part of the new UCI ProSeries in 2020 but that was cancelled due to COVID-19. The 2021, 2022 and 2023 tours were also cancelled.

History

2015

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

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

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

The tour was extended to four days running from Thursday 3 May to Sunday 6 May.[2] 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

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 tour 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 to 2022

The 2020 tour was scheduled to run from 30 April to 3 May with stages from Beverley to Redcar, Skipton to Leyburn, Barnsley to Huddersfield and Halifax to Leeds.[13][14] The 2020 tour was cancelled in March 2020, due to the coronavirus outbreak in the United Kingdom.[15] The 2021 Tour was cancelled in November 2020[16] and the 2022 Tour was cancelled in August 2021.[17]

Future

After Welcome to Yorkshire went into administration,[18] the future of the event was put into question. The rights to the race were bought at auction, as part of a package of assets, by the company Silicon Dales.[19][20] The Managing Director of Silicon Dales said it was hoped to get the race running again for the 10th anniversary of the 2014 Yorkshire Grand Depart in 2024.[20] Subsequent negotiations between the new owners of Welcome to Yorkshire and ASO to revive the Tour de Yorkshire for 2024 failed, but there are still hopes for a similar event to continue the race's legacy in 2024.[21]

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,[22] and £60 million in 2019.[23] It was estimated that the broadcast coverage of the event in 2017 was viewed by 9.7 million people across the world[24] with over 2 million spectators lining the route.[25]

The 2018 Tour attracted crowds of about 2.6 million people, which The Times newspaper estimated to be the largest spectator event in the United Kingdom.[26] The spectators who lined the route spent 54% more on hospitality than on the previous TdY from 2017.[27] 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.[26]

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.
2021 No race due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2022 No race due to financial problems.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Le Tour de Yorkshire". BBC News. 5 July 2014. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  2. 1 2 "Tour de Yorkshire extends to four day race". BBC News. BBC. 21 September 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2017.
  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. ↑ "Tour de Yorkshire 2020 route revealed with more climbing than ever". BBC News. BBC. 17 January 2020. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  15. ↑ "Coronavirus: Tour de Yorkshire 2020 postponed because of pandemic". BBC Sport. 17 March 2020. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
  16. ↑ "Tour de Yorkshire: Already postponed 2020 event delayed further until 2022". BBC Sport. 11 November 2020. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  17. ↑ "Tour de Yorkshire 2022 cancelled". BBC Sport. 31 August 2021. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  18. ↑ "Welcome to Yorkshire goes into administration". BBC News. 1 March 2022. Retrieved 2 July 2022.
  19. ↑ Scott, Linda (25 April 2022). "An Update on Tour de Yorkshire & a Thank You for your Support". Yorkshire.com. Retrieved 2 July 2022.
  20. 1 2 Hyde, Nathan (25 March 2022). "Tour de Yorkshire fans told race could return in 2024". Yorkshire Post. Retrieved 2 July 2022.
  21. ↑ "Tour de Yorkshire: Brakes on over attempts to resurrect cycle race". BBC News. 28 July 2022. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  22. ↑ Gullon, Nick (5 October 2018). "Tour de Yorkshire host towns revealed". Darlington & Stockton Times. No. 40–2018. p. 8. ISSN 2516-5348.
  23. ↑ Fox, Alexa (11 July 2019). "Record-breaking cycle races promote 'world class' region". Darlington & Stockton Times. No. 28–2019. p. 6. ISSN 2516-5348.
  24. ↑ Foster, Mark (7 July 2017). "Cycle race injects a huge £64m into local economy". Darlington & Stockton Times. No. 27–2017. p. 4. ISSN 2040-3933.
  25. ↑ "Yorkshire Tour Route Revealed". Darlington & Stockton Times. No. 2017–49. 8 December 2017. p. 22. ISSN 2040-3933.
  26. 1 2 Westerby, John (7 May 2018). "Yorkshire targets La Vuelta as 2.6m people line the streets". The Times. No. 72528. p. 59. ISSN 0140-0460.
  27. ↑ Behrens, David (10 July 2018). "Spectators spend 50pc more as Tour de Yorkshire riders go past". The Yorkshire Post. p. 8. ISSN 0963-1496.
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