Fourteen local cycling teams and several from abroad, including Canada, Colombia, Guadeloupe and the United States took off today, Thursday 20 February on the first stretch of the 1,010 km cycling tour around the country.
The 35th Independence Cycling Tour, the leading event of its kind in the Caribbean, is divided into eight stages from 20 to 28 February. The first leg of the competition took off at 9:30am from Independence Park in Santo Domingo’s Colonial City to cover the 146km stretch to San Pedro de Macoris in the southeast.
The second leg departs at 9am on 21 February from Santo Domingo to Samana (140 km). The third stretch is from Samana to Sanchez and San Francisco de Macoris (136 km). The fourth is a turnaround the Avenida Monumental in Santiago. The fifth takes cyclists to Moca, La Vega, Jarabacoa and Constanza (95 km). The sixth takes cyclists on tour from La Vega to Villa Altagracia and then to Santo Domingo (79 km) in the morning, to compete against the clock in the Mirador del Sur Park in the afternoon (20 km). The seventh stretch is San Cristobal-Bani-Azua-San Juan, a distance of 162 km. The eighth is along the Quinto Centenario expressway (96 km).