|
In road bicycle racing, a Grand Tour refers to one of the three major European professional cycling stage races: Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España. Collectively they are termed the ''Grand Tours'', and all three races are similar in format being multi-week races with daily stages. They have a special status in the UCI regulations: more points for the UCI World Tour are distributed in Grand Tours than in other races, and they are the only stage races allowed to last longer than 14 days. The Tour de France is the oldest and most prestigious〔 of all three, and also the world's most famous cycling race. The Giro d'Italia is the second most important〔The Tour, the Giro and the Road World Cycling Championship make up the Triple Crown of Cycling.〕〔(An American in Italy ) cyclingnews.com, May 5, 2009〕〔(Million dollar, baby! ) cyclingnews.com, January 12, 2007〕〔(Vuelta a España A-Z ) cyclingnews.com, September 7, 2008〕 and has occasionally been as popular as the Tour (late '40s, '50s, and early '70s). == Description == In their current form, the Grand Tours are held over three consecutive weeks and typically include two "rest" days near the end of the first and second week. The stages are a mix of long massed start races (sometimes including mountain and hill climbs and descents; others are flat stages favoring those with a sprint finish), as well as individual and team time trials and non-competitive exhibition and rest days. Unlike most one-day races, stages in the Grand Tours are generally under 200 kilometers in length. Controversy often surrounds which teams are invited to the event. Typically, the Union Cycliste Internationale (''International Cycling Union'') prefers top-rated professional teams to enter, while operators of the Grand Tours often want teams based in their country or those unlikely to cause controversy. From 2005 to 2007, organisers had to accept all ProTour teams, leaving only two wildcard teams per Tour. However, the Unibet team, a ProTour team normally guaranteed entry, was banned from the three Grand Tours due to gambling advertising laws. In 2008, following numerous doping scandals, some teams were refused entry to the Grand Tours: Astana did not compete at the 2008 Tour de France and Team Columbia did not compete at the 2008 Vuelta a España. Since 2011, under the UCI World Tour rules, all ProTour teams are guaranteed a place in all three events, and obliged to participate. The prizes include the individual General classification, the team classification, the King of the Mountains, the points classification, and often the best young rider classification, in addition to other less known classifications. The most contested ones are the individual general classification (''Maillot jaune'' -yellow jersey- in the Tour de France, ''Maglia rosa'' -pink jersey- in the Giro d'Italia, and ''Jersey rojo'' -red jersey- in the Vuelta a España, ; king of the mountains classification (''Maillot à pois rouges'' -red polka dotted jersey- in the Tour, ''Maglia Azzurra'' -blue jersey- in the Giro, and ''Jersey de puntos azules'' -blue polka dotted jersey- in the Vuelta); and points classification (''Maillot vert'' -green jersey- in the Tour, ''Maglia Rosso Passione'' -red jersey- in the Giro, and ''Jersey verde'' -green jersey- in the Vuelta). Only three riders have won all three in the same race: Eddy Merckx in the 1968 Giro d'Italia and 1969 Tour de France, Tony Rominger in the 1993 Vuelta a España and Laurent Jalabert in the 1995 Vuelta a España. It is rare for cyclists to ride all grand tours in the same year; in 2004, 474 cyclists started in at least one of the grand tours, 68 of them rode two Grand Tours and only two cyclists started in all three grand tours. It is not unusual for sprinters and their leadout men, who do not expect to complete each race, to start each of the Grand Tours and aim for stage wins before the most difficult stages occur. Alessandro Petacchi and Mark Cavendish started all three Grand Tours in 2010 and 2011, respectively, as did some of their preferred support riders. For both riders in both years, only the Tour de France was ridden to its conclusion. Over the years, 32 riders have completed all three Grand Tours in one year. Marino Lejarreta has done it four times, Bernardo Ruiz and Adam Hansen three times, Eduardo Chozas and Carlos Sastre twice each, and 27 more riders have achieved the feat once. The only riders to have finished in the top 10 in each of the three tours during the same year are Raphaël Géminiani in 1955 and Gastone Nencini in 1957. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Grand Tour (cycling)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|