Tour de l'Avenir

Infobox Cycling race
name = Tour de l'Avenir
current_event =


date = September
region = France
english = Tour of the Future
localnames = Tour de l'Avenir fr icon
nickname =
discipline = Road
competition = UCI Nations Cup
type = Stage race
organiser = ASO
director =
first = 1961
number = 45 (as of 2008)
last =
firstwinner = flagicon|ITA Guido De Rosso
mostwins =
mostrecent = flagicon|BEL Jan Bakelants

Tour de l'Avenir (English: Tour of the Future) is a French road bicycle racing stage race, which started in 1961 as a race similar to the Tour de France and over much of the same course but for amateurs and for semi-professionals known as independents. Riders competed in national teams. The race was the idea of the Tour de France organiser, Félix Lévitan, who wanted to attract to the roads of the Tour teams from countries such as the Soviet Union and other communist nations that had no professional riders.

From 1986 to 1990, the race was organized under the name of Tour de la Communauté Européenne (English: Tour of European Community).

It is currently reserved for riders up to 23 years old and it is considered prestigious for that age group. This is partly because of the impressive names of previous winners, including later Tour de France winners Felice Gimondi, Joop Zoetemelk, Greg Lemond, Miguel Indurain and Laurent Fignon, who have won 12 editions of the Tour de France between them. Since 2007, the event is run as a UCI Nations Cup event, meaning that it is open to men under 23 category and is once more run for national teams.

Previous winners

External links

* [http://www.letour.fr/2007/TDA/COURSE/us/index.html Official 2007 site]