History

Almost a century ago, (27 June 1925) the peloton of the first Tour de Hongrie started it's journey at 4:00 A.M. from the Gellert Hotel of Budapest. 

The first winner: Károly Jerzsabek

„The Hungarian Tour de France is a very unique cycling event in the history of Hungarian sport, it was organized so perfectly, absolutely considering the sports professional, public relations and propaganda parts of the race. No doubt, organization was more accurate and detailed than even Germans can do” – wrote the Nemzeti Sport, Hungarian daily sport newspaper in 1925.

Every cyclist knows what Tour de France is. There is no need for any explanation. So many of us cannot wait those 3 weeks of the summer when the focus is on the Tour de France. It is amazing to „explore” the different parts of the route and follow the cyclists day after day and see how the very bests do it. Just imagine! In a hot sunny day, with a good, cold drink we are having discussions about the actual stage, the performance of Pogacar, van Aert or Bernal. Is it familiar? A cyclist also knows what Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana are. Knows that in every country its national cycling race is the „big thing”. Every rider wants to win these Tours. Being the overall winner is such a huge honor and prestige. Hungary sometimes had, sometimes had not its own Tour. But we can certainly say, that in 1925, the world of cycling in Hungary has changed forever.

Tour de Hongrie

Start: 27 june 1925. Lenght of the race: 510,5 km.

Just imagine, that time, without those support cars it was really not easy to make the stage with consistent tempo. Well, Hungarian rider, Karoly Jerzsabek did it, and he became the 1st winner of Tour de Hongrie. „The Hungarian Tour de France is a very unique cycling event in the history of Hungarian sport, it was organized so perfectly, absolutely considering the sports professional, public relations and propaganda parts of the race. No doubt, organization was more accurate and detailed than even Germans can do” – wrote the Nemzeti Sport, Hungarian daily sport newspaper in 1925. The time of the start was at 4 AM, a truly early morning for the riders to leave the Gellert Hotel. Jerzsabek (from Team MTK) accomplished the distance in 22 hours 10 minutes. The route was: Budapest-Gyor-Szombathely-Budapest.

The longest Tour de Hongrie: 1393 km

The start was difficult, and the early years have not become easier either. However, until the 2nd World War, Hungary had its own Tour every year. Almost every year, to be exact. Two years were skipped: 1928, when Hungary hosted the Road Cycling World Championships and 1936, by political reasons: the Hungarian riders were ordered to miss the Tour in order to get ready for the Olympics. The first foreign riders arrived in 1929, when German rider Oscar Thierbach became the first non-Hungarian winner of the race.

Finish in 1953

The World War could not stop the peloton either. The route was created carefully and precisely, cyclist were competing in safe parts of the country. In 1942 and 1943, the race visited Northern Transylvania, after Nazi Germany assigned the territory to Hungary - it was reverted to Romania by the Allies after World War II.

Under the communist regimes of Mátyás Rákosi and János Kádár, the race went ahead from time to time (using the sport as a source of soft power), but only until 1965. A quarter-century break followed the victory of László Mahó. Those days, Hungary's bests were only able to follow the world’s cycling sport from newspapers they received from Vienna. 

In 1993, the long wait was finally over! The 22nd Tour de Hongrie was organized by the Hungarian Cycling Federation, under the guidance of János Sipos, who was one of the key figures in the history if Hungarian cycling. The race went ahead every year until 1999, with some incredible riders in the peloton, such as Danilo Hondo, Jens Lehmann or Robert Bartko. After a 2-year break, a new main organiser was on the block: former Olympic cyclist, Károly Eisenkrammer. On 12 July 2001, we could finally celebrate the 28th winner of the Tour the Hongrie in Budapest: Mikos Rnakovic from Yugoslavia. A year later, Hungarian Zoltán Vanik (club: Postás-Matav SE) got the victory, in 2003 the Slovakian-Hungarian Zoltán Remák became the winner.

Finish in Budapest, 1997

Zoltan Remák, living is Szepsi, made history in 2004: he became only the third rider after Lászlo Vida and Győző Török, who could defend his title. In 2005, Tamás Lengyel won, who was the last Hungarian winner of the race until 2020, when Attila Valter reached the peak of Kékestető in the 1st place.

Between 2006 and 2008 the event’s name was DCG Tour de Hongrie, organized by Kerekpársport 2000 Alapítvány (special foundation). Two stages were held in Slovakia too - one in 2007 and one in 2008 respectively. After 2008, the organisers backed off, and the country had to wait another 7 years for the return of Hungary's biggest cycling race.

Finally, in 2015 the Tour returned under the organisation of Vuelta Ltd. and it's director, Károly Eisenkrammer. Since then, 8 riders from 8 different nations won the Tour de Hongrie, while it became a UCI 2.1 stage race in 2018, and a ProSeries event in 2023! In 2022, eight WorldTeams and eleven ProTeams took part in the Hungarian competition, with star riders such as Fabio Jakobsen, Dylan Groenewegen or Elia Viviani, proving that Tour de Hongrie became a major event in international cycling.