- Veenendaal-Veenendaal
Infobox Cycling race
name = Veenendaal-Veenendaal
current_event =
Official race banner (Courtesy: Race Organisers)
date = Early-June
region = Veenendaal, Netherlands
english = Veenendaal-Veenendaal
localnames = Veenendaal-Veenendaal nl icon
nickname =
discipline = Road
competition = UCI Europe Tour
type = Single-day
organiser =
director =
first = 1985
number = 23 (as of 2008)
last =
firstwinner = flagicon|NED Joop Zoetemelk
mostwins = flagicon|NED Wiebren Veenstra
flagicon|NED Steven de Jongh
(2 wins)
mostrecent = flagicon|GER Robert FörsterVeenendaal-Veenendaal is a semi classic professional
cycling race in theNetherlands starting and finishing in the town ofVeenendaal with a route based around theVeluwe National Park and theNederrijn river valley in the south east corner of Utrecht province. The event is part of the UCI Continental calendar of events with a ranking of 1.HC and is the second biggest cycling race in the Netherlands after theAmstel Gold Race .The race only came into being in 1985 so it is very young by European cycling standards, over the years it has been run at three different times on the international cycling calendar. It was instigated by the
Royal Dutch Cycling Union (KNWU) who wanted to create a preparation race in August just before the World Championships. In 1994 the event was moved to mid April and given a date on a Thursday, the day afterLa Flèche Wallonne and a few days beforeLiège-Bastogne-Liège . The race organisers were never happy with this because it reduced the quality of the field with the top teams unwilling to race three times in four days, however in 2004 the UCI agreed to a date change to a less intense week on the Friday afterParis-Roubaix and two days before the Amstel Gold Race. However the event has been moved to yet another new date for 2006, with the race now taking place on June 7th, away from the congested Spring Classics calendar and no longer competing in the same midweek with theGrote Scheldeprijs another 1.HC event.In 2005 Veenendaal-Veenendaal benefited from the creation of the new UCI ProTour structure when it was elevated to 1.HC standard bringing to the same level as Belgium's
Omloop "Het Volk" and Germany'sRund um den Henninger Turm , thus bringing more sponsorship and publicity. In 2001 the race looked like being cancelled as the Foot and Mouth outbreak hit the Netherlands but the race eventually went ahead as the organisers modified the route to avoid sensitive areas.The race itself takes place on winding roads through the Veluwe National Park over a distance of roughly 209 km which is interspersed with little steep cobbled climbs, the most significant of which are the Grebbeberg at the town of
Rhenen and the Posbank. The list of winners includes some top class riders such asJoop Zoetemelk ,Jean-Paul van Poppel ,Olaf Ludwig ,Viatcheslav Ekimov ,Andrei Tchmil andJeroen Blijlevens .The 2007 race brought on board the Dutch organisation Food Valley as main sponsors and the event had the alternative title of "The Dutch Food Valley Classic".
Results
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