The 2015 Tour of the Basque Country was the 55th 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) ...

stage race. It took place from 6 to 11 April and was the ninth race of the

2015 UCI World Tour The 2015 UCI World Tour was the seventh edition of the ranking system launched by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) in 2009. The series started with the opening stage of the Tour Down Under on 20 January, and concluded with Il Lombardia on 4 ...

. The race was won by

Joaquim Rodríguez Joaquim Rodríguez Oliver (born 12 May 1979) is a former Spanish professional road racing cyclist, who competed between 2001 and 2016 for the , , and teams. Rodríguez recorded notable results included fourteen Grand Tour stage victories, an ...

Schedule

Teams

As the Tour of the Basque Country was a UCI World Tour event, all 17

UCI WorldTeams UCI most commonly refers to: * University of California, Irvine, a public university in Irvine, California, United States * Union Cycliste Internationale, the world governing body for the sport of cycling UCI may also refer to: * Uganda Cancer In ...

were invited automatically and were obliged to send a squad. Two Professional Continental teams received wildcard invitations.

Stages

Stage 1

;6 April 2015 —

Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...

to Bilbao,

Stage 2

;7 April 2015 — Bilbao to

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 ...

Stage 3

;8 April 2015 — Vitoria-Gasteiz to Zumarraga,

Stage 4

;9 April 2015 — Zumarraga 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 5

;10 April 2015 — Eibar to

Aia AIA or A.I.A. or Aia may refer to: Aia * Aia, a small town in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, Spain * Aia, current Kutaisi, ancient capital of Colchis * Aia, another name for Aea (Malis), an ancient town in Greece * ''Aia'', the collected ed ...

Stage 6

;11 April 2015 — Aia to Aia, ,

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 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 Tour of the Basque Country, and the winner of the classification was 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, second place earned 20 points, third 16, fourth 14, fifth 12, sixth 10, and one point fewer per place down to a single point for 15th. There was also a

mountains classification The King of the Mountains (KoM) is an award given to the best climbing specialist in a men's cycling road race; in women's cycle racing A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a femal ...

, the leadership of which was marked by a red jersey with white dots. In the mountains classification, points were won by reaching the top of a climb before other cyclists, with more points available for the higher-categorised climbs. The fourth jersey represented the sprints classification, marked by a blue jersey. In the sprints classification, cyclists received points for finishing in the top 3 at intermediate sprint points during each stage, with the exception of the final

stage. 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

External links

* {{Tour of the Basque Country Tour of the Basque Country by year