2017 Tour Of The Basque Country
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The 2017 Tour of the Basque Country was a
road cycling Road cycling is the most widespread form of cycling in which cyclists ride on paved roadways. It includes Recreational cycling, recreational, Road bicycle racing, racing, Bicycle commuting, commuting, and utility cycling. As users of the road, ...
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 ...
that took place between 3 and 8 April. It was the 57th edition of the
Tour of the Basque Country The Tour of the Basque Country (Officially: ''Itzulia Basque Country'', es, Vuelta al País Vasco, links=no, eu, Euskal Herriko Itzulia) is an annual road bicycle racing, road cycling stage race held in the Basque Country (autonomous community) ...
and was the fourteenth event of the 2017 UCI World Tour. The race was won for the first time by
Alejandro Valverde Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (born 25 April 1980) is a Spanish former professional road racing cyclist, who last rode for UCI WorldTeam . Valverde's biggest wins have been the Vuelta a España in 2009, Critérium du Dauphiné in 2008 and 2009 ...
of the , who took the race lead on the penultimate day after winning the queen stage in
Eibar Eibar ( eu, Eibar, es, Éibar) is a city and municipality within the province of Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country of Spain. It is the head town of Debabarrena, one of the '' eskualde / comarca'' of Gipuzkoa. Eibar has 27,138 inhabitants ( Eustat ...
, before further extending the lead by finishing second in the final-day individual time trial; Valverde's finishes on those stages aided him to take the points classification from 's Michael Matthews at the death. Valverde finished 17 seconds clear of four-time race winner
Alberto Contador Alberto Contador Velasco (; born 6 December 1982) is a Spanish former professional cyclist. He is one of the most successful riders of his era, winning the Tour de France twice ( 2007, 2009), the Giro d'Italia twice (2008, 2015), and the Vue ...
() while the all-Spanish podium was completed by the national time trial champion,
Ion Izagirre Ion Izagirre Insausti (born 4 February 1989) is a Spanish professional road bicycle racer and cyclo-cross rider from the Basque Country, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam . He is sometimes referred to as Jon Izagirre, to retain the correct ...
, a further four seconds in arrears of Contador for the team. In the race's other classifications, 's
Alex Howes Alex Howes (born January 1, 1988) is an American former professional road racing cyclist, who competed as a professional in 2007 and from 2012 to 2022, spending his entire career with . Howes turned professional on a full-time basis in 2012. Pe ...
won the polka-dot jersey as winner of the mountains classification,
Lluís Mas Lluís Guillermo Mas Bonet (born 15 January 1989) is a Spanish racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam . He rode in the Vuelta a España every year from 2014 to 2018. On 3 May 2015, he won the final stage of the Tour of Turkey; he ...
() was the winner of the intermediate sprints classification while won the teams classification.


Route

The full route of the 2017 Tour of the Basque Country was announced on 23 March 2017.


Participating teams

As the Tour of the Basque Country was a
UCI World Tour The UCI WorldTour (2009–2010: ''UCI World Ranking'') is the premier men's elite road cycling tour, sitting above the UCI ProSeries and various regional UCI Continental Circuits. It refers to both the tour of 38 events and, until 2019, an annual ...
event, all eighteen
UCI WorldTeam A UCI WorldTeam (2015–present), previously UCI ProTeam (2005–2014), is the term used by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to name a cycling team of the highest category in professional road cycling, the UCI World Tour or UCI ProTour ...
s were invited automatically and were obliged to enter a team in the race. Two
UCI Professional Continental 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 ...
teams – and – were awarded
wildcard Wild card most commonly refers to: * Wild card (cards), a playing card that substitutes for any other card in card games * Wild card (sports), a tournament or playoff place awarded to an individual or team that has not qualified through normal pla ...
places, bringing the number of teams to twenty. As each team included eight riders, a total of 160 riders started the first stage.


Stages


Stage 1

;3 April 2017 —
Pamplona Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region. Lying at near above ...
to Valle de Egüés,


Stage 2

;4 April 2017 — Pamplona to
Elciego Elciego ( eu, Eltziego) is a town and municipality located at the southern end of the province of Álava, in the Basque Country, northern Spain. This town lies in the world-famous Rioja wine-production region, and is home to the architecturally ...
,


Stage 3

;5 April 2017 —
Vitoria-Gasteiz es, vitoriano, vitoriana, , population_density_km2 = auto , blank_name_sec1 = Official language(s) , blank_info_sec1 = Spanish, Basque , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
to
San Sebastián San Sebastian, officially known as Donostia–San Sebastián (names in both local languages: ''Donostia'' () and ''San Sebastián'' ()) is a city and Municipalities of Spain, municipality located in the Basque Country (autonomous community), B ...
,


Stage 4

;6 April 2017 — San Sebastián to
Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...
,


Stage 5

;7 April 2017 — Bilbao to
Eibar Eibar ( eu, Eibar, es, Éibar) is a city and municipality within the province of Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country of Spain. It is the head town of Debabarrena, one of the '' eskualde / comarca'' of Gipuzkoa. Eibar has 27,138 inhabitants ( Eustat ...
,


Stage 6

;8 April 2017 — Eibar to Eibar, ,
individual time trial An individual time trial (ITT) is a road bicycle race in which cyclists race alone against the clock (in French: ''contre la montre'' – literally "against the watch", in Italian: ''tappa a cronometro'' "stopwatch stage"). There are also track-b ...
(ITT)


Classification leadership table

In the 2017 Tour of the Basque Country, four different jerseys were awarded. For the
general classification The general classification (or the GC) in road bicycle racing is the category that tracks overall times for riders in multi-stage races. Each stage will have a stage winner, but the overall winner in the GC is the rider who has the fastest cumulati ...
, calculated by adding each cyclist's finishing times on each stage, the leader received a yellow jersey. This classification was considered the most important of the 2017 Tour of the Basque Country, and the winner of the classification was considered the winner of the race. Additionally, there was a
points classification The points classification is a secondary award category in road bicycle racing. Points are given for high finishes and, in some cases, for winning sprints at certain places along the route, most often called ''intermediate sprints''. The points cl ...
, which awarded a white jersey. In the points classification, cyclists received points for finishing in the top 15 in a stage. For winning a stage, a rider earned 25 points, with 20 for second, 16 for third, 14 for fourth, 12 for fifth, 10 for sixth with a point fewer per place down to a single point for 15th place. There was also a sprints classification for the points awarded at intermediate sprints on each stage (except for the time trial stage) – awarded on a 3–2–1 scale – where the leadership of which was marked by a blue jersey. The fourth jersey represented the mountains classification, marked by a white and red polka-dot jersey. Points for this classification were won by the first riders to the top of each categorised climb, with more points available for the higher-categorised climbs. There was also a classification for teams, in which the times of the best three cyclists per team on each stage were added together; the leading team at the end of the race was the team with the lowest total time.


References


Sources

*


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tour of the Basque Country, 2017
2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...
2017 UCI World Tour 2017 in Spanish road cycling April 2017 sports events in Spain