Herald Sun Tour

Herald Sun Tour

First run	1952
hero	October
country	Australia
region	Victoria
Type	Stage race
Data
Events	63
First winner	Australia Keith Rowley
Last winner	Australia Jai Hindley
Record winner	Australia Barry Waddell 5 ×

The Herald Sun Tour is an Australian stage race for cyclists in Melbourne and the state of Victoria .

The race, which was held for the first time in 1952, usually lasts six days and was initially held annually in October and later at the beginning of the year. From 2005 to 2011 it was part of the UCI Oceania Tour and was classified in category 2.1.

history

The first overall winner was Keith Rowley , a shepherd. J. McDonough was the first mountain king and also won the points classification . Both came from the province of Victoria, which is where the race took place.

In the mid-80s, professionals took part in the tour for the first time. Probably the most famous Australians to win the race were Russell Mockridge in 1957, Neil Stephens in 1986, the winner of the green jersey of the Tour de France , Baden Cooke in 2002 and Stuart O'Grady . The record holder with five wins (in a row) is Australian Barry Waddell .

In 2004, 85 riders took part, covering the 1,111 kilometers in 13 stages. The toughest climbs to conquer were the category 1 mountains Mount Baw Baw and Otway Ranges . Jonas Ljungblad from the Italian team Amore e Vita secured the overall victory.

In 2010 the race was not held. The reason for this was that the organizers, in consultation with the UCI, wanted to move the tour to spring in order to increase the attractiveness. The upcoming World Championships in Melbourne were also a reason for this. Due to the restructuring of the UCI calendar, this idea was discarded and the race took place in its original place in October 2011. In 2012 it was decided to move the race to spring after all, so that in 2012 there was again no staging, but the race was staged in the run-up to the Tour Down Under at the beginning of the year in January 2013 as a race on the national calendar. In September 2013 it was announced that the UCI will re-include the race in the UCI Oceania Tour from 2014 .

When it was held in 2014, the final stage of the Herald Sun Tour had to be canceled because the security forces were withdrawn to fight bush fires.