The Étoile de Bessèges () is an early-season five-day

road bicycle racing Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held primarily on Road surface, paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional sport, professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and ...

stage race A race stage, leg, or heat is a unit of a race that has been divided in several parts for the reason such as length of the distance to be covered, as in a multi-day event. Usually, such a race consists of "ordinary" stages, but sometimes stages ...

held annually around

Bessèges Bessèges (; oc, Besseja) is a Communes of France, commune in the Gard Departments of France, department in France. It is situated on the river Cèze. History Historically Bessèges was a hamlet of Robiac-Rochessadoule, Robiac. Its importanc ...

, in the

Gard Gard () is a department in Southern France, located in the region of Occitanie. It had a population of 748,437 as of 2019;Languedoc-Roussillon Languedoc-Roussillon (; oc, Lengadòc-Rosselhon ; ca, Llenguadoc-Rosselló) is a former administrative region of France. On 1 January 2016, it joined with the region of Midi-Pyrénées to become Occitania. It comprised five departments, and ...

region of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. First organized in 1971 as a one-day race, it became a stage race run over five days in 1974. Since 2005, it is on the calendar of the

UCI Europe Tour The UCI Continental Circuits are a series of road bicycle racing competitions which were introduced in 2005 by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to expand cycling around the world. The five circuits (representing the continents of Africa, the ...

as a 2.1 event and features as the earliest stage races of the European season. The Étoile de Bessèges is the first of several stage races held in the hilly

South of France Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi atlantique'', A ...

in February, preceding

La Méditerranéenne La Méditerranéenne, previously known as Tour Méditerranéen, is a professional road bicycle racing event held in Spain, France and Italy, close to the Mediterranean Seaside. Run over four days, it holds a 2.1 rating on the UCI Europe Tour. The ...

, the

Tour du Haut Var The Tour du Haut Var ( en, Tour of the Haut Var) is an early-season two-day road bicycle race in the Var department region in the south of France. Until 2008 it was run as a one-day race, part of the UCI Europe Tour. In 2009, the race transformed ...

and the

Tour La Provence The Tour de la Provence is an early-season bicycle stage race in the Provence region of France. It is organized by southern French newspaper La Provence, which serves as the race's title sponsor for its first three years. It is held in February, ...

. These early-season races are competed mainly by French teams and are considered preparations for

Paris–Nice Paris–Nice is a professional cycling stage race in France, held annually since 1933. Raced over eight days, the race usually starts with a prologue in the Paris region and ends with a final stage either in Nice or on the Col d'Èze overlookin ...

, the first European World Tour event in March.

Winners

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Etoile De Besseges UCI Europe Tour races Cycle races in France Sport in Gard Recurring sporting events established in 1971 1971 establishments in France