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 Edit this at Wikidata
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

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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

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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

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  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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