page_title: Volta a Catalunya
section_title: World Tour Race
hierarchical_section_title: Volta a Catalunya / History / World Tour Race
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of "Volta a Catalunya 2012" Català: Mapa de la "Volta a Catalunya 2012"
context_page_description: The Volta a Catalunya is a road bicycle race held annually in Catalonia, Spain.
  It is one of three World Tour stage races in Spain, together with the Vuelta a España and the Tour of the Basque Country. The race has had several different calendar dates, running before in September, June and May. Since 2010 it has been on the calendar in late March as part of the UCI World Tour.
  Raced over seven days, it covers the autonomous community of Catalonia in Northeast Spain and contains one or more stages in the mountain region of the Pyrenees. The race traditionally finishes with a stage in Barcelona, Catalonia's capital, on a circuit with the famous Montjuïc climb and park.
  First held in 1911, the Volta a Catalunya is the fourth-oldest still-existing cycling stage race in the world. Only the Tour de France, the Tour of Belgium and the Giro d'Italia are older. It was the second cycling event organized on the Iberian peninsula, only after the amateur and sub-23 race Volta a Tarragona, equally held in Catalonia but no longer on the calendar. Catalan cycling icon Mariano Cañardo won the race seven times in the 1920s and 1930s, setting an unsurpassed record.
context_section_description: In 2005 the Volta a Catalunya was included in the inaugural UCI Pro Tour and the date was shifted to May, to avoid the Tour de Suisse date. The edition was won by Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych but the move did not prove successful because the new date coincided with the Giro d'Italia.
  In 2010 the race moved to late March on the calendar, the slot formerly held by another Catalan stage race, the Setmana Catalana. Joaquim Rodriguez, the foremost Catalan rider of his generation, won the race twice since the date shift. Alberto Contador, winner of the 2011 edition, was later stripped of his win after his positive doping test in the 2010 Tour de France. Italian runner-up Michele Scarponi was retroactively awarded the victory. The 2020 edition was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
caption: Route of the 2012 Volta a Catalunya.
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