• 2022-09-30
• Tour de Hongrie

Tour de Hongrie: ProSeries!

Based on the decision of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), Tour de Hongrie became a ProSeries race from 2023. With this success, Hungary’s Tour is guaranteed to be in the „upper house” of sport for the next three years - this also means we are directly behind the biggest races, such as Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a Espana. With the decision, we can expect increased international attention, the already significant advertising and tourism value of the competition will increase to a large extent, which is both good news for the sponsors, the partner cities, and thus for Hungary.

It is extremely difficult to have a place between the ProSeries and WorldTour events in the UCI competition calendar, as a given number of professional teams can only participate in a limited number of competitions. The international federation issues licenses for professional teams and competitions every three years, so the scramble for places is understandably quite big. The number of ProSeries events is limited per continent, so someone has to drop out in order for a new race to be added. Between 2023 and 2025, multi-day competitions of twelve countries in Europe received the ProSeries license, including Hungary.

Only the highest-ranked teams in the sport can attend UCI ProSeries events. In addition to WorldTeams and ProTeams, the teams of the host country may be exceptions. Thus, the National Team of Hungary and Hungarian-registered "UCI Continental Team" as well as a maximum of two foreign UCI Continental Teams can take part in the competition. According to our hopes, in 2023 there will be a Hungarian "Conti" team in the peloton again, so Hungarian cycling could take a big step forward with this.

With this decision, the Tour de Hongrie enters an elite club; events such as the Deutschland Tour, the Tour of Britain or the Arctic Race of Norway are in the ProSeries calendar. In addition to Hungary’s Tour, from our region the Croatian and Slovenian Tours will be part of the series.

Why is this category important for teams? Competitors will receive one and a half times as many world ranking points for their performance, and they can expect higher prize money than in 2022: instead of the previous 80,000 EUR, the amount paid to the teams will be 150,000 EUR.

For years, organizers of Tour de Hongrie made enormous efforts so that Hungary’s Tour could reach a new level and become part of the UCI ProSeries calendar. In recent years, Tour de Hongrie has already fulfilled the necessary criteria in terms of the number of participating professional teams, worldwide media coverage, safe conduct and accommodation. The professional standard reached in 2022 can hardly be raised any further, however being a ProSeries race is still a kind of guarantee that the professional teams and biggest stars will return to Hungary year after year. The ProSeries license is valid for three years, which means that the race will be part of the ProSeries calendar until 2025 – that year Tour de Hongrie will celebrate its centenary.

The development of Hungarian cycling is also important to the Secretary of State for Sports, Ádám Schmidt: "In recent years, our country has hosted many important, huge international competitions, and each time we have received positive feedbacks regarding both the venue and the organization. It is a great pleasure and honor for us that by raising the Tour de Hongrie to a higher level, Hungary can host another world-class sports event from 2023. I congratulate the Hungarian organizing team from the bottom of my heart and thank you for the persistent and conscientious work of the previous years, and I wish you much success for the next three years."

Máriusz Révész, Secretary of State for Active Hungary, has been helping the development of the competition personally for seven years now. He said about the ProSeries news: "In 2015, when the Tour de Hongrie reborn and started again, no one thought that in a few years, world stars would be cycling in Hungary. This required excellent organization, world-class work of the police, great cooperation with them and predictable government support. The final impact was given by the frantic start of the Giro d'Italia in Budapest, and what we had secretly hoped for happened: in the next three years, the Hungarian Tour will be a ProSeries race. This is a wonderful success for our country, because there is a huge over-subscription for these places. We still have a task left: We need a team! A Hungarian team of a category that can attend the Tour de Hongrie.”

"The news fills me with pride that in the next three years the Tour de Hongrie will be in the “upper house” of the sport," said Károly Eisenkrammer, Main Organizer of the competition. - We have worked a lot for this success, so I am immensely grateful to my colleagues, my organizing team, the leaders and staff of the Hungarian Cycling Association, all our contributors, supporters and partners, the Police, the Hungarian Public Roads, M4 Sport, our start and finish cities, and, of course, to the Government of Hungary, whose consistent support made it possible for us to travel this path. In addition to being professional, this recognition is also a sport diplomatic success. Our multi-year media cooperation with A.S.O., the organizer of the Tour de France, was very important in our evaluation, thanks to whom the Hungarian Tour is now shown on television screens in 190 countries."

According to Péter Princzinger Dr., President of the Hungarian Cycling Federation: "The Tour de Hongrie, in addition to being a patina sports event, is also a "springboard" for Hungarian road cyclists towards the ProSeries and WorldTour competitions - let's think, for example, of the success of Attila Valter, Márton Dina, Barnabás Peák, Viktor Filutás, or János Pelikán and Erik Fetter. It is a particular pleasure that all obstacles have been removed from the fact that in 2023, in addition to the national team and the riders who are legion in foreign teams, a continental team with Hungarian registration can also attend Hungary's most prestigious cycling race. The ProSeries category opens up new dimensions in the sport for Hungarian competitors, teams, supporters and sponsors.”

"A few years ago, the ProSeries classification seemed at least as unimaginable as a Giro start in Hungary," said László Szilasi, Race Director of the Tour de Hongrie. – The last five years of the Tour de Hongrie have been about the highest level of service provided for the teams. We paid more attention to this than most competitions in a similar category to ours, so from now on we have an even more stable background to host the world's best teams again and again. As a Race Director, for me, the “fruit” of all invested work is the change of competition category, as long as it happens upwards. The ProSeries is an amazingly high level, but we shouldn't think that it's the end. I hope that in a few years we will organize the first WorldTour race in the region."

The 2023 Tour de Hongrie will take place traditionally in spring, between 10-14 May. The route will be announced in February.