Amaury Sport Organisation

The Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) is part of the French media group, EPA (Éditions Philippe Amaury). It organises sporting events including the Tour de France, Vuelta a España and Paris–Nice professional cycle road races, and the Dakar Rally. In 2008 it organised the Central Europe Rally, a rally raid endurance race in Romania and Hungary.[1]

Amaury Sport Organisation logo

The Tour de France was instituted by the newspaper L'Auto in 1903.[2] The paper was closed after World War II because of its links with the occupying Germans and a new paper, L'Équipe, took over. L'Équipe (now part of EPA) organised the Tour until the race was taken over by its parent company, ASO.

ASO organises the Paris Marathon, cycling events in Africa (Tour du Faso) and the Middle East (Tour of Qatar), golf (the Open de France, Lacoste Ladies Open de France and Grand Prix Schweppes[3]) and sailing (Tour de France à la voile).[4] ASO also organises cyclosportives events for amateur cyclists, including the L'Étape du Tour and La Etapa de la Vuelta.[5]

The president of ASO is Jean-Etienne Amaury, son of EPA founder Philippe Amaury.

Professional cycling events

Current

As of 2020 ASO organises the following professional cycling events:

UCI World Tour
UCI Continental Circuits
Women's
Amateur

Former

References
  1. Central Europe Rally 2008: 2008 Edition > The Route Archived 2008-04-28 at the Wayback Machine
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-06-14. Retrieved 2009-10-24.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. "Golf" (in French). ASO. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
  4. "Voile" (in French). ASO. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
  5. "Épreves grands public" (in French). ASO. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
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