The nine-day Vuelta a Colombia has been halted mid-race to help ensure the country's emergency services can prioritise assistance for victims of the earthquake which struck the country earlier this week.
Registered 7.4 on the Richter Scale – a major earthquake – Monday's disaster has caused over 270 known deaths to date, with more than 300 people missing and many times more that number injured, as well as significant damage to buildings and infrastructure in western Colombia. It was the country's biggest earthquake in years and massive rescue operations are currently ongoing.
Now in its 76th edition, the Vuelta a Colombia had completed five of its nine stages, with the sixth due to enter Manizales, the capital of the Caldas district, one of the worst affected by the disaster.
The Colombian Cycling Federation then announced that "due to the circumstances which have arisen during the ongoing competition, the Vuelta a Colombia has been declared over."
Local racer Diego Camargo (Medellin-EPM), who had moved into the lead after stage 5 following a victorious solo ride to the summit finish of Alto el Sifón, was declared the overall winner.
Organisers emphasised that given the scale and impact of the earthquake, assistance for the victims had to take priority.
"We don't want to be having roads closed off [for racing] at the wrong moment and that could affect help being sent [to the victims]" Federation President Rubén Galeano told news agency EFE.
Initially a reduced version of stage 6 on Thursday had been planned, according to El Tiempo, in order to stop the race reaching the worst affected parts of the country. But when riders were still in the neutralised section, the decision was taken to cancel the stage, and then the race. A final winners' ceremony apparently then went ahead.
Considered one of South America's premier bike races, the nine-day 2.2-classified Vuelta a Colombia had been scheduled to finish on Sunday in the city of Medellín.
Earlier in the week, former top Colombian pro Alvaro Mejia, fourth in the 1993 Tour de France and a winner of the Volta a Catalunya, had described to El Tiempo how he and his family had been caught up in the earthquake - and strongly protested at the lack of rapid assistance to some rural areas.
"There are people out on the roadside whose homes have collapsed; they are injured and asking for help via text message, yet there is no one there to lend them a hand," Mejia, now working as a doctor, told El Tiempo.
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