Tour of the Basque Country
The Basque Country Tour (Spanish Vuelta al País Vasco ciclista; bask Euskal Herriko txirrindulari itzulia. ) Is a stage race in the Spanish Basque Country. The discharged annually in April tour belonged since 2005 to the newly created UCI ProTour from 2011 to discipleship series UCI World Tour, a series of the most important bike race of the year.
The Basque Country Tour was first held in 1924 and is held regularly since 1952 instead. The profile of the race is considered to be extremely challenging, since a large part of the route is driven into the mountains.
Record winner of until the 1980s, almost exclusively by the Spanish (or Basque ) dominated the race is José Antonio González with four hits in the 1970s. With Andreas Klöden (2000 and 2011 ) has so far won only one German the tour.
Not to be confused with the Basque Country Tour is the Euskal Bizikleta, another Basque tour, which was held until 2008 and merged according to increasing financial problems in 2009 with the Basque Country Tour.
List of winners
- 2013 Columbia Nairo Quintana
- 2012 Spain Samuel Sánchez
- 2011 Germany Andreas Klöden
- 2009 Spain Alberto Contador
- 2008 Spain Alberto Contador
- 2007 Spain Juan José Cobo
- 2006 Spain José Ángel Gómez Marchante
- 2005 Italy Danilo Di Luca
- 2004 Russia Denis Menshov
- 2003 Spain Iban Mayo
- 2002, Spain Aitor Osa
- 2001 Lithuania 1989 Raimondas Rumsas
- 2000 Germany Andreas Klöden
- 1999 France Laurent Jalabert
- 1998 Spain Iñigo Cuesta
- 1997 Switzerland Alex Zülle
- 1996 Italy Francesco Casagrande
- 1995 Switzerland Alex Zülle