Major cycling events and famous people

UCI World Tour Men

The UCI World Tour was founded in 2009 and is a complex competition for professional male bicycle riders. There is also a UCI World Tour for women. The competition is spread over 6 months. It consists of 27 smaller competitions that count to the final winning result. The competitions are: The three Grand Tours, The five Monument one-day races, Nine further stage races in Europe, Seven further one-day races in Europe, One stage race in Australia, and Two one-day races in Canada.

Most recent winner is Peter Sagan, a young Slovak professional bicycle rider who won the UCI World Tour this year. He started his cycling career in 2009, and now, at only 26 years old he has a long list of competitions he won. In one press conference in 2010 he said: “I do not want to be the second Eddy Merckx. I want to be the first Peter Sagan.”

Nairo Quintana from Colombia came second after Peter Sagan with only 60 points difference, followed by Chris Froome from UK and Alejandro Valverde from Spain on third and fourth place.
UCI World Tour Women
The women version of UCI World Tour was founded in 2016. The first edition of the competition started on 5 March and ended on 11 September. It is different from the male UCI WT because it focuses on nine one-day races from the former UCI Women Road World Cup, and four stages from China, United Kingdom, United States and Italy.

This year’s winner for the individual classification was Megan Guarnier an American professional bicycle rider. Canadian Leah Kirchmann followed on second place with over 300 points difference, and third place was occupied by Lizzie Armitstead from the UK.
UCI Continental Circuits

The UCI Continental Circuits is a competition that consist of 5 major circuits on different continents: Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Oceania. The event was founded in 2005 and since then it had encouraged more involvement in the cycling competitions around the world.

The winners of UCI Africa Tour in 2016 for the individual classification was Issak Tesfom Okubamariam from Eritrea, and for the team classification the winner was Al Nasr Pro Cycling Team–Dubai.

For the UCI America Tour, individual, the winner of 2016 competition was Greg Van Avermaet from Belgium, and the winner team was Holowesko Citadel Racing Team from Colombia.

The UCI Asia Tour 2016 individual was won by Mark Cavendish from UK. The team winner was Pishgaman–Giant from Iran which won the second time in a row this year.

For the 2016 UCI Europe Tour, Baptiste Planckaert brought victory for his country, Belgium. Wanty–Groupe Gobert team, also from Belgium, won the team classification this year.

Last but not least, the UCI Oceania Tour of 2016, individuals, was won by Sean Lake from Australia. And for the team classification the Avanti Racing Team also from Australia was the winner.