ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base
Return to Colombia 2018
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The 68th edition of the cycling competition Vuelta a Colombia (official name: Vuelta a Colombia Ministerio de Transporte Seguridad Vial) was a cycling race in stages that was held in Colombia between 5 and 19 August 2018 with beginning in the city of Pereira, Risaralda and final in the city of Medellín, Antioquia on a tour of 2 073.3 km.
The race was held as a non-ICU national category competition being part of the calendar of the Colombian Federation of Cycling for 2018 and was won by the Ecuadorian runner Jonathan Caicedo of Team Medellín, who became the fifth foreign cyclist and first Ecuadorian to win the Vuelta a Colombia. The podium was completed, in second place Juan Pablo Suárez (EPM) and third place Óscar Sevilla (Team Medellín).
Tour
The country's highest stage cycling event went through the departments of Risaralda, Quindío, Valle del Cauca, Caldas, Tolima, Cundinamarca, Boyacá, Santander, and Antioquia distributed in 13 stages. The race began with a prologue of 8.2 kilometres around the city of Pereira, later the race visited the departments of Valle del Cauca, Quindío, Caldas and Tolima; where the well-known ports of the Tower of Cyprus in Manizales are raised in the 3rd stage, and the Alto de La Línea in the 4th stage considered one of the 3 mythical ports of the Vuelta to Colombia. Then the race leaves the coffee-making axis to reach the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá, where in the 7th stage it ends with an individual counter-watch of 41.5 kilometres between Paipa and Tunja to commemorate the same tour of the 1995 World Counter-Watch Championship won by Miguel Induráin.
After the day of rest, the 8th stage paid tribute to one of the most important active cyclist of Colombian cycling: Nairo Quintana; starting from his hometown Tunja and passing through the streets of Arcabuco and going all the way where Nairo began as a cyclist and then continuing his journey to the department of Santander with a stage for the speedists with the end in the municipality of Barichara. The 9th stage was the cherry of the pastel (queen stage) of the race with the ascension to the ports of the Stone Caseron, Alto de los Padres and the Paramo of Berlin commonly called the Peaje Picacho, out of category (3493), an ascension of 47 kilometres with ramps up to 9% of the level, where the requirement for the ascending by bike is the heat and humidity of the area where only the strongest were placed in the general classification. The race then goes towards the oil port of Barracabermeja with two stages for the speedists in the cities of Barracabermeja and Puerto Boyacá. After 12 days of competition, the race continued towards the department of Antioquia with the last stage of mountain towards the top of the Union, and finally with epice