Tour legacy race details revealed

The provisionally-titled Tour de Yorkshire will take place from May 1 to 3 next year, it was announced yesterday.

It will be staged by the Welcome to Yorkshire tourism agency and Amaury Sport Organisation, which runs the Tour de France.

The race will comprise three full stages over its three days and will be an official part of the world cycling calendar for 2015.

Its exact route is being kept under wraps until early next year but it is hoped it could take in areas of Yorkshire that were not visited by the Tour de France’s hugely-successful Grand Départ at the start of July.

Welcome to Yorkshire’s chief executive Gary Verity said: “This new official international cycle race heralds the start of a world-class event for Yorkshire that we want to see grow over the coming years to become known the world over.

“We already have a huge amount of interest thanks to the Yorkshire Grand Départ, which captured the imagination of millions of people globally – and the Tour de Yorkshire will be a fitting legacy. We’re confident that come May, we’ll deliver something very special.”