Donald Trump seen with some of the sport's biggest stars from 1989, including Dag Otto Lauritzen to Trump's left in the 1989 Tour de Trump leader's jersey. Photo: Anders on flickr
If you were up watching the Super Tuesday pundits review the primary results, and if you're a little older than a millennial, you, like us, may have wondered, "how did we get here from the days of the Tour de Trump?"
Yes, regardless of your opinion on the polarizing, often offensive political candidate, he's likely the only U.S. presidential candidate in history to have sponsored a professional bike race. Today for Throwback Thursday we're taking a brief look back at the short-lived Tour de Trump stage race.
The Tour de Trump was going to be a "tremendous" event that would "very much rival the Tour de France," according to Trump back in 1989. The Tour de Trump was going to be HUGE. The first year's prize purse was $250,000.00 USD, a good amount for a new race back then and the biggest purse on American soil.
Two foreigners won the two installments of the Tour de Trump. Norwegian Dag Otto Lauritzen, racing for 7-Eleven, took the inaugural Tour de Trump and the second, and last, edition of the race was won by Mexican Raúl Alcalá who had left the 7-Eleven squad to ride for PDM. Ah, memories.
Hopes were high that the event would be the long-term successor of the Coors Classic stage race, which ended in 1988. The dream however was a bit short lived. The Donald's stint as a race sponsor lasted only two years, 1989 and 1990, before the first of Trump's bankruptcies forced another sponsor, the DuPont Corporation, to step in. The Tour DuPont would race on from 1991 to 1996.
Watch Viatcheslav Ekimov roll two tubular tires, a rainbow-striped Greg Lemond mash a huge gear up cobbles, and the Crest toothpaste team fly by with shiny white teeth in the Tour de Trump video below.
https://youtu.be/-4ufHfCZGN4
Enjoy a video of Trump, the race promoter, some race footage from the 1990 edition and a few images from the inaugural 1989 Tour de Trump in the slideshow below.
The 1989 Tour de Trump was the event’s inaugural year and took racers down the East Coast. Photo: Donald West on flickr
