Tour de Korea
The Tour de Korea is an annual professional road bicycle racing stage race held in South Korea since 2001 as part of the UCI Asia Tour. It as rated by the International Cycling Union (UCI) as a 2.2 category race, then promoted to 2.1 category in 2014. The race is organized by the Korea Cycling Federation. History. The tour gained international attention when Lance Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France winner, participated in 2007. Armstrong, having retired from cycling at that time, did not compete. For the sake of publicity, he rode one lap around the  course of the first stage on his mountain bicycle. Tour de Korea is the only international cycling competition in South Korea. The predecessor to Tour de Korea was stopped in 1997 due to financial strains. Tour de Korea is divided into two divisions: Elite for invitees and competitive cyclists, and a "Special race" for cycling club teams. The prize money for the 2011 tour totaled 200 million Won. The tour course is long, making it the longest cycling competition in Asia. The tour comprises exclusively point-to-point road race stages. Unlike the major tours in Europe, such as the  Tour de France and Giro d'Italia, there are no time trials or team time trials. The tour was planned this way reportedly because the promoters wanted to minimize time and effort spent in recording and sorting race results.