The Vuelta Ciclista del Uruguay celebrates its 81st edition and sets the goal of being a UCI test

The 81st edition of the traditional Cycling Tour of Uruguay It was presented with the announcement of a route of 1,767 kilometers and the medium-term objective of professionalizing the test to integrate it into the calendar of the International Cycling Union (UCI).

The test, which will begin next Thursday in Montevideo and will end on April 5 in the same place, will be competed by 132 cyclists distributed in 24 teamsamong which there are 21 local teams and three international teams, from Brazil, Argentina and Canada.

As detailed by the organizers, the Brazilian team is emerging as one of the main contenders, since it will arrive with high-level cyclists who recently represented their country in Pan-American competitions.

These teams will seek to give a fight to the Uruguayan teams and the current defending champion of the event, Anderson Maldonado. The local cyclist will seek to retain the title he won last year after taking the overall lead from a Brazilian competitor on the penultimate day of the race.

The test will be divided into eleven stages that will cross a large part of the South American country.

In that sense, the president of the Uruguayan Cycling Federation, Pablo Quintana, highlighted that, on this occasion, small towns will live for the first time the experience of hosting official starts, bringing the event closer to the “deep interior” of the country.

Among the main sporting attractions, the return will include a time trial stage in Lake Merín and highly demanding sections such as the route between Nuevo Berlin and Salto.

For his part, the president of the Uruguayan Olympic Committee (COU), Fernando Ucha, valued the social significance of the event, ensuring that “one in ten Uruguayans sees the cyclists pass by” during the competition days.

Ucha revealed to EFE that the Committee and the Federation are already working together with the goal of transforming the return into a test within the UCI calendar within a period of five years.

To achieve that status, he explained that Uruguay needs to strengthen its local clubs, improve existing infrastructure and prepare logistically to receive at least eleven top-level international teams.

Meanwhile, this edition will serve as “a strong training stage” for Uruguayan cyclists ahead of the next South American Games, the first big step in the Olympic cycle towards the Pan American Games and, finally, the Olympic Games.