Tour d'Algérie

Tour d'Algérie

First run	1949
Period	March
country	Algeria
Type	Stage race
Data
Events	19th
First winner	Hilaire Couvreur Belgium
Last winner	Natnael Berhane Eritrea
Record winner	Hilaire Couvreur 2 × Belgium

The Tour d'Algérie (German: Algeria Tour ) is an annual Algerian road bike race that was held for the first time in 1949.

After the stage race took place for the last time in 1953, it was brought back to life in 1970 and held as an amateur competition. After two phases without taking place from 1976 to 1983 and from 1989 to 2000, the Tour of Algeria has been part of the UCI Africa Tour in category 2.2 since 2011 . The race took place in June 2011 before moving to March in 2012. The Belgian Hilaire Couvreur , who won the first two races , has been the only driver to win the race twice.

Routing

The Algeria tour can have both flat and mountainous stages due to the different geographical and topographical conditions of the country with the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea in the north and the Sahara with the Ahaggar Mountains and the Chad Basin in the south. The race usually ends in the capital, Algiers .

history

1949-1953

The Tour d'Algérie was created by Frenchman Alec Barthus in 1949 - at a time when Algeria was still a French colony - and took place from March 13 to April 3 over 19 stages and 2,707 kilometers. The race started in Alger and led the riders first to the east, then to the south and finally over the Atlas Mountains to the east and back to the capital Alger, where it ended in the local cycling stadium. At the start were mainly professional cyclists from Europe. The Belgian Hilaire Couvreur won the first tour of Algeria after 89 hours, 2 minutes and 27 seconds, ahead of the French Roger Dequenne , 38 seconds behind. The third-placed Edward Van Dyck , a compatriot Couvreur, was already more than 12 minutes behind the winner. Ahmed Kébaili was the best African in fifth overall . Couvreur repeated his success from 1949 the following year, making him the only driver to have won the race twice.

In 1951 the Tour d'Algérie was renamed the Tour d'Afrique du Nord , took place for two weeks in May, shortly after the Tour du Maroc in April, and also led to Tunisia . This year, the drivers were troubled by the cold, strong wind and rain, before another Belgian with André Rosseel secured victory. After the only French victory by Vincent Vitetta in 1952, Germain Derycke was won by a Belgian again in 1953 , before the professional cycling race was no longer held due to the Algerian War.

1970-2003

In 1970 the Tour of Algeria was re-introduced under the organization of the Algerian Cycling Federation around the former stage winner of the race, Ahmed Kébaili , this time only for amateurs. In addition to the overall rating, special ratings such as a team rating or a point rating were introduced based on the example of the Tour de France . The first event after the country gained independence from France ran over almost 2000 kilometers. 112 drivers in 16 teams took part. Because of the strong wind and snowfall, which decimated the field on the seventh stage, the tour was divided into two overall ratings: one from the first to the seventh and one from the eighth to the last stage. The first part of the race was dominated by the Polish team, which won the first overall classification through Zygmund Hanusik and the points classification through Ryszard Szurkowski and also came first in the team classification. The second overall ranking finally went to Axel Peschel from the also very successful GDR team . Peschel's team-mate Bernd Knispel had already finished third in the first overall standings. The best amateur from Germany was Johannes Knab , third in the second overall ranking. The Algerian hosts were able to achieve two stage wins.

The 1971 tour of Algeria ran over 12 stages and 1500 kilometers. Again teams from Poland, the GDR and this time also from the Soviet Union took part. The Soviet delegation won the team championship and placed three drivers among the top four in the overall standings, but this did not prevent Poland's Zbignien Krzeszowiec from winning . In 1974 there was no race, and after the Swede Sven-Åke Nilsson won in 1975, the Tour of Algeria was not held at all until 1984. After the competition was resumed in 1984, the Algerian drivers dominated in the following years, the European participation decreased. In 1984, Niedine Tchambaz was the first Algerian to win his home tour. Nevertheless, Steffen Rein from the GDR was the second German to win the race in 1988, his compatriot Falk Boden achieved third place. After that, the Algeria tour was canceled for over ten years and was only revived in 2000 - now as an international African elite race after the amateur class was abolished in cycling. The first edition in the new millennium saw an Egyptian triple success. Then in 2003 another tour of Algeria took place over eleven stages before the competition was suspended for a few years.

As of 2011

The Algerian Cycling Federation finally reintroduced the Tour of Algeria in June 2011 as part of the UCI Africa Tour in the international racing calendar. The tour is now only five stages long and will take place in March from 2012. Two days after the end of the race, the Circuit d'Alger takes place in the Algerian capital at the end of the tour , but it does not count towards the overall ranking of the race.