Gran Fondo World Tour ® Series Final, Alexander Vinokurov launched the first Gran Fondo in Central Asia with the first edition of Gran Fondo Kazakhstan-Tour of Zhetysu

Taldykurgan, the capital city of Almaty region, hosted the first ever Gran Fondo event in Central Asia

157 participants opened a new page on the history of non-professional cycling with the event, closing the 2016 edition of Gran Fondo World Tour ® Series. The series opened in Gran Fondo Barcelona in April and was followed by Gran Fondo Kuwait in May, Marcialonga Cycling Craft in Italy, Styrkeproven in Norway, Golden Gran Fondo in USA and Kazakhstan as closing event.

The Kazakh event was possible thanks to the support of the Almaty Region Authority, and had the presence of the Deputy Governor Serik Turdailev as participant on the bike and announced the next edition of the event expectedto be May 2017.

With Alexander Vinokurov on the start line of the 110 km, the two days event closed with a criterium with the top ranked of the time trial section on Saturday 1st October in the capital of Almaty region. The event was marked with a moderated lateral wind on the last part and asked the best performance from the participants. Together with the Olympic champion Vinokurov, who was on the start line wiuth two other top Kazakh cyclists, Maxim Iglinskiy and Vadim Kravchenko, both important cyclists onh the track with the Soviet Union Team.

The winners for the man was Bakhtiar Mamyrov, Gennady Krupyakov and Sergey Boronin. Situated in different ages categories.

For the woman the world tour stage winner was Victoria Zaitseva. Taking the last points ih the 2016 world tour ranking.

Gran Fondo World Tour ® Series closed it's first year with a global participation of ten thousand participants.

Dates for the 2017 destinations will include new continents and countries.

The global winners of the 2016 Gran Fondo World Tour ® Series editions are: Elisabeth Solberg and Knut Sande both from Norway!

For mor infpormation, please visit: www.granfondoworldtour.com