The ''Vuelta a Guatemala'' (Spanish for Tour of Guatemala) is a multi-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 and typically during late October and early November in several locations in

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

. The competition carries a

UCI rating The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the world's governing body in the sport of bicycle racing, classifies races according to a rating scale. The rating is represented by a code made of two or three parts and indicates both the type or style ...

of 2.2 (having also been rated 2.5 from 2002 to 2004) and is part of the UCI America Tour, which is one of six UCI Continental Circuits sponsored by the Union Cycliste Internationale, the sport's international governing body. The race is organized by the ''Federacion Nacional de Ciclismo de Guatemala''.

History

The ''Vuelta a Guatemala'', which has become the largest sporting event in the country in terms of spectator affluence, was first held in 1957. The winner of the first edition was local racer Jorge Surqué, and during the first four years, the competition was dominated by Guatemalan and

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

n participants. As of 2007, Colombia is the nation with the most wins all-time, with 21 general classification individual wins. From 1992 to 1996, five different Colombian participants took five consecutive titles, before local racer

Luis Rodolfo Muj Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...

won in 1997, becoming the first Guatemalan to finish first since

Edin Roberto Nova Edin is a predominantly Bosnian masculine given name of Arabic origin. Notable persons with that name include: Persons with the given name * Edin Ademović (born 1987), Bosnian footballer * Edin Cornelius Alfsen (1896–1966), Norwegian missionar ...

had won his second tour in 1988, and ending the longest drought of titles for his country. The winner of the 2004 edition of the race, Lizandro Ajcú, was disqualified afterwards for doping in what was the biggest doping case of the race's history – nine riders including the first four on the General classification returned positive A samples. In 2005, the tour was cancelled after Tropical Storm Stan's heavy rainfalls caused floods and

mudslide A mudflow or mud flow is a form of mass wasting involving fast-moving flow of debris that has become liquified by the addition of water. Such flows can move at speeds ranging from 3 meters/minute to 5 meters/second. Mudflows contain a significa ...

s which damaged infrastructure and caused 1500 deaths weeks before the race was due to begin. The LII edition of the race in 2011 was cancelled by the organizers shortly before the start of the race. Heavy rains during September and October damaged roads and paths, and the Guatemala Government, having concerns for life safety, decreed the cancellation as the infrastructure could not be restored in such a short period and rescheduling of the event was not feasible due to the busy schedules of different participants. The event was then scheduled for May 13–20, 2012.

Past winners

References

{{Reflist

External links

Website of Federación de Ciclismo de Guatemala – organisers of Vuelta a Guatemala
Cycle races in Guatemala UCI America Tour races Recurring sporting events established in 1957 1957 establishments in Guatemala