Tour de Yorkshire

Tour de Yorkshire
2018 Tour de Yorkshire
Race details
Date April/May
Region Yorkshire, England
Discipline Road
Competition UCI Europe Tour
Type Stage race
Organiser Amaury Sport Organisation/Welcome to Yorkshire
History
First edition 2015 (2015)
Editions 4 (as of 2018)
First winner  Lars Petter Nordhaug (NOR)
Most recent  Greg Van Avermaet (BEL)

The Tour de Yorkshire (French: Tour du Yorkshire) is a road cycling race in Yorkshire, England which started in May 2015. It is promoted by the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) and is rated as a 2.1 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 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 over the three days before the May Day bank holiday (which in Britain is on the first Monday in May).

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.[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]

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.[8]

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, £60 million in 2016 and £64 million in 2017. It was estimated that the broadcast coverage of the event in 2017 was viewed by 9.7 million people across the world[9] with over 2 million spectators lining the route.[10]

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.[11] The spectators who lined the route spent 54% more on hospitality than on the previous TdY from 2017.[12] Welcome to Yorkshire was reported to be in talks with the organisers of 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.[11]

Winners

Rider Team
2015 Norway Lars Petter Nordhaug (NOR) Team Sky
2016 France Thomas Voeckler (FRA) Direct Énergie
2017 Belgium Serge Pauwels (BEL) Team Dimension Data
2018 Belgium Greg Van Avermaet (BEL) BMC Racing Team

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "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 host venues revealed". BBC News. 4 October 2018. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  9. ↑ Foster, Mark (7 July 2017). "Cycle race injects a huge £64m into local economy". Darlington & Stockton Times (27–2017). p. 4. ISSN 2040-3933.
  10. ↑ "Yorkshire Tour Route Revealed". Darlington & Stockton Times (2017–49). 8 December 2017. p. 22. ISSN 2040-3933.
  11. 1 2 Westerby, John (7 May 2018). "Yorkshire targets La Vuelta as 2.6m people line the streets". The Times (72528). p. 59. ISSN 0140-0460.
  12. ↑ 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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