Cycling Feature: Jayco Herald Sun Tour
Jayco Herald Sun Tour is the most prestigious Australian cycling race started in 1952 as Keith Rowley was its first winner. The race has been dominated by Australians mostly during its initial years, as the most recent Champion of the race is the British
rider Bradley Wiggins. The tour is organised every year since 1952 except 2010.
Race is held in October every year and in 2010 organisers decided to move it from October to February as Australia was hosting the World Championships 2010. UCI opposed the move even though it was agreed upon by Cycling Australia and resulted in a conflict.
UCI Road World Championships 2010 were held in Melbourne and Geelong as a result Jayco Herald Sun Tour could not be scheduled as planned in 2010. Hence, it was decided that the Herald Sun Tour will return to its original calendar date in 2011.
The race has usually been dominated by the Australian cyclists as they won the first 33 editions of the event and Malcolm Elliot was the first non Australian to win the Herald Sun Tour in 1985. Keith Rowley who won the race in its debut year took a total
time of 42 hours, 57 minutes and 55 seconds. Jack McDonough was the first Sprint Champion and the King of Mountains classification winner.
Jayco Herald Sun Tour was initially known as the Sun Tour as it was named after The Sun News-Pictorial but as sun merged with The Herald in 1990, the race was also renamed after the newspaper. Cyclists from all over the World participated in the race as
a total number of 85 riders were included in 2004. There were 17 teams with 5 members in each team as Jonas Ljungblad of Switzerland won the general classifications. Phillip Thuaux won the Mountains Classifications while Karl Menzies was the most successful
sprinter at 2004 edition of the race. The standards of the race were rising every year and it was rated by UCI in 2005 and is still recognised by the cycling governing body of the world, Union Cycliste Internationale.
2007 and 2008 were the two years that set the foundation of the new cycling era in Australia as professional teams Astana, CSC Saxo Bank and Barloworld participated in the Jayco Herald Sun Tour. Stuart O’ Grady won the general classifications of the race
along with stage 2 and stage 5 for the first time in 2008 and defined his feelings as, “bloody fantastic.” He further added that, “The Jayco Herald Sun Tour is probably the most prestigious in Australian cycling and I’m just very honoured and very proud to
have won.”
Grady believes that a lot of great names in Australian cycling are attached to the Herald Sun Tour and that he is honoured to have been in that list. He said, “To have my name on that awesome trophy is very good. It’s got a lot of history and a lot of great
names, probably all the best Australian riders in our history and I’m just extremely proud to have my name etched alongside those guys.”
It will be interesting to see how the Jayco Herald Sun Tour 2011 unfolds as cyclists from across the World are getting ready for the race organised from October 12-16, 2011.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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