Alejandro Valverde on the Murcia pdium (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
The future of the Vuelta a Murcia faces uncertainty after the local government cut €20,000 of funding for the event.
The news comes just weeks before the UCI 1.1 one-day race is scheduled to run on February 10, 2018.
The event organisers, Club Murciano Organizador de Carreras Ciclistas, were given no reason for the withdrawal of the funds. The race relies heavily on the subsidy, which amounts to roughly 30 per cent of the total budget for the race.
"The organization of the Vuelta a Murcia was expected to continue in 2018, since this economic aid was included in the 2017 budgets at the behest of the four parliamentary groups in the regional assembly by unanimous agreement," the organisers said in a statement, according to EFE, "so this situation is a serious setback for the Vuelta a Murcia."
In October, the organisers asked the government to expand the subsidy to €35,000 so it could expand the race to two days, adding an individual time trial.
The race, once a five-day stage race, has been scaled back over the past decade as Spain's economy struggled. In 2012, it was cut to three stages after losing sponsors. By the following year, it was scaled back further to a one-day event, but remained on the international calendar. Local hero Alejandro Valverde won the last edition.
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