Tour of Romania
| Race details | |
|---|---|
| Date | Start June |
| Region | Romania |
| English name | Tour of Romania |
| Local name(s) | Turul României, Mica Buclă |
| Discipline | Road |
| Competition | UCI Europe Tour |
| Type | Stage race |
| History | |
| First edition | 1934 |
| Editions | 50 (as of 2013) |
| First winner |  Marin Nikolov (BUL) |
| Most wins |  Constantin Dumitrescu (ROM) Mircea Romaşcanu (ROM)(3 wins) |
| Most recent |  Vitaliy Buts (UKR) |
The Tour of Romania (or “Little Loop”) is a cycling competition held in Romania. It is organised as 2.2 race on the UCI Europe Tour.
History
Inspired by Tour de France, the monthly publication "Car Magazine" held in August 1910 the first edition of "Circuit Wallachia". The competition took 12 riders at the start on the route Bucharest–Sinaia–Targoviste–Butimanu–Bucharest (approximately 300 km or 190 mi). The race lasted for three editions. Since 1934 the newspaper "Daily Sport", in collaboration with Romanian Cycling Federation has organized the Tour of Romania. Romania became the sixth country in the world to organize a National Amateur Cycling Tour, after Belgium (1906), Netherlands (1909), Bulgaria (1924), Hungary (1925) and Poland (1928).
The route first edition was 1,026 km (638 mi) long and included six stages.
Statistics
- The longest route was the 3rd edition in 1936 at 2,242 km (1,393 mi).
- The shortest route was Lua error in Module:Convert at line 272: attempt to index local 'cat' (a nil value)., in the 29th edition of 1991.
- At the 19th edition of 1973, Cluj, a stage was held nocturnal on the 27.3 km (17.0 mi) distance.
- Rider Traian Chicomban of Brasov participated in the January edition (1934) until the 9th edition (1954), as the Tour's longest-running participation of Romania.
- 45th edition (2008) was the first edition which was featured in the calendar Union Cycliste Internationale.
