RRI Sports Club

History of Romanian cycling

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Florin Orban, 07.08.2019, 14:29

These days we
celebrate the 85th anniversary of Romania’s cycling tour, whose debut edition
was staged in 1934. On August 15 that year, a notable Romanian magazine signaled
that on a Sunday, a great number of competitors took the start, while those
attending were also in great numbers, drawn by the unique image of the competing
cyclists. Journalists and organizers were in hot pursuit of the new adventure.
61 participants took the start, with a mere 19 being able to finish the race.
The winner of the seven legs was the Bulgarian Marin Nicoloff.

In 1934, Romania
was the world’s 7th country to have staged a national cycling tour.
In descending order, the other six countries were France, where the inaugural
tour was staged in 1903, Belgium, where the first such tour was held in 1906,
the Netherlands, where the national tour was staged in 1909, Bulgaria, where
the national cycling tour was first organized in 1924, Hungary, where such a
tour was fist mounted in 1925 and Poland, where the inaugural edition of the national
cycling tour was held in 1928.

Only three
editions of the circuit were held until World War Two, in 1934, 1935 and 1936.
All three were won by foreign cyclists. It was not until 1946 that the fourth
edition was held, while the fifth was staged in 1950 and won by a Romanian
cyclist, Constantin Şandru. Later, Steaua’s Constantin Dumitrescu and Dinamo’s
Mircea Romascanu emerged as winners of the competition three times each.

After 1990,
Romania’s Cycling Tour faced management problems that in 1991 lead to the
reduction of the overall route. There were only 430 kilometers, divided in six
legs.

The competition
was not held in 1996, and also in 2014 and 2017. Romania’s cycling tour was
resumed in 2018, when the Romanian Sergey Tsvetkov won the race.

In 2019, according
to the Romanian Cycling Federation’s website, Romania’s Cycling Tour will be
held between September 11 and 15th.