2022

43rd Tour de Hongrie: The great cycling boom

We will remember the Hungarian cycling festival in May for a long time: the grande partenza of the Giro d’Italia in Hungary was a huge success, just as the Tour de Hongrie, which started three days later, produced the strongest race in its history up to that point in every respect. The great cycling boom took place before our eyes, we got on the map of the cycling elite, but we must take advantage of the opportunity to stay on it

The stars have arrived.

In recent years, the race of the Tour de Hongrie has been continuously strengthened, this is confirmed by the analysis of the benchmark website, the Procyclingstats. The portal, which provides sport results lists, rankings and statistics, also scores the quality of the startlist, according to which only 4 points were awarded to the Tour de Hongrie in 2015, the following values indicate the continuous development: 9 points in 2016, 19 in 2017, 36 in 2018, 70 points in 2019, 85 in 2020, 129 in 2021, and 175 points in 2022, the latter value already competing with ProSeries events.

The high value is not a coincidence, eleven of the star teams of the sport sent their lines to us, including teams such as Quick Step-Alpha Vinyl, INEOS Grenadiers, Jumbo-Visma or Bahrain-Victorious - as if the strongest clubs of football Champions League would come to a tournament in Hungary. The progress is also clearly visible here: in 2015 and 2016 only the continental teams (the "third line") were nominated, in 2017 the first ProTeam arrived (this is the second level in the sport), in 2018 three, in 2019 already four ProTeams have entered the competition. The first star teams arrived in 2020, that year eight ProTeams started in addition to five WorldTeams, in 2021 eight WorldTeams and eight ProTeams, and in 2022 eight ProTeams participated in the Tour de Hongrie in addition to the eleven WorldTeams.

(photo: Fabio Jakobsen won two stages and the green jersey in Hungary)

The world stars also arrived at the Hungarian competition, for the first time we were able to welcome at the start such cycling stars as Fabio Jakobsen, Dylan Groenewegen (both Dutch) or Elia Viviani (Italian). All three are among the best sprinters in the world, all of them have already won several stages at the biggest road cycling competitions, the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia or the Vuelta a España, furthermore Jakobsen has won the Vuelta's speed points competition, Groenewegen has four Tour stage wins, and Viviani also has an Olympic gold medal on the track. It would not be at all surprising if the three of them would fight the biggest battles in the sprints at the Tour de France in July.

INEOS has also preliminarily enrolled the winner of the 2020 Giro d'Italia but Tao Geoghegan Hart was not ready to race after the coronavirus infection. Károly Eisenkrammer, the main organizer of Tour de Hongrie, stated what has now become quite obvious: the Hungarian tour will never be a competition for the general classification riders, the geographical conditions do not allow the best mountain climbers to train here. The conditions are more suitable for sprinters, and now the goal is to bring the world's fastest road racers to us every single year.

The Tour de Hongrie has become a paradise for sprinters

And the star teams are glad to come: they can compete in Hungary under safe conditions reminiscent of the biggest competitions, with high-quality accommodation and great media attention, all three aspects mean a lot when they compile their competition calendar.

About the safe conditions: the entire Tour de Hongrie route is closed to traffic. This presents a very serious task to the organizers, who can achieve this with the effective cooperation of the Police. During the five days of the race, 2,650 employees from seven counties and the Budapest police headquarters took out their share of the road safety. The caravan was accompanied by 19 police motorcycles and 23 road safety motorcycles, three ambulances, a medical car and an ambulance motorcycle.

INEOS Grenadiers first came, saw and conquered

The total sum of the awards is 17 million forints which is a small item in the budget, the largest part of which is the amount spent on the production and broadcasting of television program. With the help of the A.S.O., the communications partner of the Tour de Hongrie, the organizers ensured an even more significant television exposure for the Hungarian competition than before, worldwide, on all continents, in almost 190 countries (live in 120 countries!), the Tour de Hongrie became available to more than a billion people! It takes a long time to process the viewership data, but Eurosport's data has already arrived: the broadcasts of the Hungarian Tour reached almost six and a half million viewers. It is already safe to say that the overall numbers will be better than ever.

A billion people could have seen it

Not only in Hungary, where for the first time in the history of the competition M4Sport broadcast live coverage of every stage, and its program also included replays of the stage highligts. Due to the world stars coming to our country, our circuit received special attention in several countries, due to the outstanding performance of Fabio Jakobsen or Dylan Groenewegen, it happened that the news about the Tour de Hongrie in the Dutch and Belgian press was a bigger sensation than the events of the Giro d'Italia that day. And the news spread everywhere, as major news agencies worked with our competition, such as Reuters, SNTV, Eurovision (EBU) or AF.

We have presented Hungary to the world

Returning to the budget: the second most significant item was the amount spent on accommodation: a total of 3,215 guest nights were booked for the teams and contributors in 43 different accommodations. It is important to add that only premium accommodation could be considered for the star teams - the peculiarity of the sport is that these accommodations are provided (and paid for) by the organizers of the race, just as the entry fee prescribed in the regulations for professional teams.

Whatabout the prospects?

All this would not be possible without the special support of the Hungarian Government. In 2016, a five-year development program was started with the support of the government, the success of the program and the results achieved are supported by the fact that another five-year cycle started in 2022. A significant part of the budget is provided by government support, without which the national circuit could not have reached such a high level in a few years. At the same time, it is also the task of the organizers to supplement the state support with as much sponsorship income as possible, and in recent years, progress has been made in this area as well.

The main goal is that the race should be included in the ProSeries races of the International Cycling Federation (UCI). The Tour de Hongrie is able to fulfill almost all conditions needed for this (the quality of the competitors, worldwide media exposure, safe conduct and suitable accommodation), but there is no doubt that to reach a higher level, it will also need to find new resources for the competition's budget.

Irish cyclists on Peak Kékestető: the legend of the sport, Stephen Roche (from left) and the g.c. winner Eddie Dunbar

Some interesting facts about the Tour de Hongrie 2022

• 65 persons worked on the construction of the start and finish areas, using 3,000 meters of cordon and 15 kilometers of cordon tape.
• 71 persons made up the television crew working at the race, with a total of 17 cameras and 20 vehicles, furthermore a helicopter and a videosignal transmitting airplane also played a role in the broadcast, circling over the route throughout the broadcasts.
• 332 persons - the total number of competitors and team companions.
• 120 vehicles were used by the teams, a club typically used one truck, one bus, one van and three cars during the competition.
• 19 permanent employees worked for a year within the framework of the organizer Vuelta Ltd. on the preparation of the competition.
• 150 distinctive jerseys – yellow, green, red and white – were produced for the competition, to be worn by the best riders at the announcement of the results.
• 45,728 euros, (about 17 million HUF)  was the total prize money of the Tour de Hongrie
• 6,260 bottles, (more than 3,000 liters) of mineral water were consumed during the competition
• 980 baguettes and 2150 kilos of ice were given to the competitors
• 755,798 impressions were recorded at the official Facebook page of the competition during the five days, more than 400,000 on its Twitter page, the race in 2022 typically made significant progress in social media, the Tour de Hongrie's Instagram profile showed a 13 percent increase and a 25 percent increase on Twitter only during the event.

American champion Joey Rosskopf before the start of the third stage

43rd Tour de Hongrie (May 11-15, 2022, 905 km)

Stage winners:
Stage 1 (Csákvár - Székesfehérvár, 198 km): Olav Kooij (Dutch, Jumbo-Visma) - in yellow: Kooij
Stage 2 (Karcag - Hajdúszoboszló, 192 km): Fabio Jakobsen (Dutch, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team) - in yellow: Jens Reynders (Belgian, Sport Vlaanderen - Baloise)
Stage 3 (Sárospatak - Nyíregyháza, 154 km): Fabio Jakobsen (Dutch, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team) - in yellow: Jakobsen
Stage 4 (Kazincbarcika - Kazincbarcika, 177 km): Dylan Groenewegen (Dutch, Team BikeExchange - Jayco - in yellow: Jakobsen​​​​​​​
Stage 5 (Miskolc - Gyöngyös-Kékestető, 184 km): Antonio Tiberi (Italian, Trek - Segafredo)

Final general classification:

1. (in yellow jersey for the Aktív Hungary Award) Eddie Dunbar (Irish, INEOS Grenadiers) 20:38:43
2. Oscar Rodríguez (Spanish, Movistar Team) +0:23
3. Samuele Battistella (Italian, Astana Qazaqstan Team) +0:28
4. Edoardo Zambanini (Italian, Bahrain - Victorious) +0:29
5. Carl Fredrik Hagen (Norwegian, Israel - Premier Tech) +0:35
6. Niklas Eg (Danish, Uno-X Pro Cycling Team) +0:36
7. Krists Neilands (Latvian, Israel - Premier Tech) +0:43
8. Patrick Konrad (Austrian, BORA - hansgrohe) +0:50
9. Anthon Charmig (Danish, Uno-X Pro Cycling Team) +0:59
10. Kamiel Bonneu (Belgian, Sport Vlaanderen - Baloise) +1:01
38. Dina Márton (Hungarian, EOLO - Kometa) +2:31
 

In points classification:
1. (in green jersey for Skoda and Europcar prize) Fabio Jakobsen (Dutch, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team)

In mountains classification:
1. (in red jersey for the Cofidis prize) Aaron van Poucke (Belgian, Sport Vlaanderen - Baloise)

The best Hungarian rider:
1. (in white jersey for the Magyar Közút and Bringasport prize) Márton Dina (EOLO-Kometa)