Saturday 6 August 2011

European Junior Cycling Tour 2011

The European Junior Cycling Tour, or Jeugdtour, ends today in Assen. It's an annual event, the largest youth cycling race in Europe. This year there are 679 competitors.

It's rather wonderful to see. Lots of very quick young people from all around the world, some of whom we'll see in the Tour de France and other major races in a few years time.

We went to watch for a bit today, and also took photos and made a short film.


The local TV station has been covering the event, and rather unconventionally so did a local bank which sponsors the competition.

The races cover a lot of ground. They take place partly on closed roads (it's easier to close a road for a racing event here than in the UK), on Assen's cycle-racing track (cycle sport is popular and the result is that even small towns like Assen have such a facility) and on some paths through the woods which you'll see in the video.

1 comment:

Ben said...

Always great to see a race. Unfortunately, there aren't too many in my part of the world...