Amaury Sport Organisation
Encyclopedia
The Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) is part of the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 media group, EPA (Éditions Philippe Amaury
Éditions Philippe Amaury
Éditions Philippe Amaury , also known as Groupe EPA or the Amaury Group, is a French media group. Marie-Odile Amaury, widow of Philippe Amaury owns a majority of the company....

). It organises sporting events including the Tour de France
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...

 and Paris–Nice professional cycle road races
Road bicycle racing
Road bicycle racing is a bicycle racing sport held on roads, using racing bicycles. The term "road racing" is usually applied to events where competing riders start simultaneously with the winner being the first to the line at the end of the course .Historically, the most...

, and the Dakar Rally
Dakar Rally
The Dakar Rally is an annual rally raid type of off-road automobile race, organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation...

. In 2008 it began the Central Europe Rally
Central Europe Rally
The Central Europe Rally was a rally-raid endurance race held in Romania and Hungary. It was held in 2008 as a replacement for the canceled 2008 Dakar Rally...

, a rally-raid endurance race in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

 and Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

.

The Tour de France was instituted by the newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 L'Auto in 1903. The paper was closed after the war because of links with the occupying Germans and a new paper, L'Équipe
L'Équipe
L'Équipe is a French nationwide daily newspaper devoted to sports, owned by Éditions Philippe Amaury. The paper is noted for coverage of football , rugby, motorsports and cycling...

, took over. L'Équipe (now part of EPA) organised the Tour until the race was taken over by its parent company, ASO. ASO also organises Vuelta a España
Vuelta a España
The Vuelta a España is a three-week road bicycle racing stage race that is one of the three "Grand Tours" of Europe and part of the UCI World Ranking calendar. The race lasts three weeks and attracts cyclists from around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages...

, Critérium du Dauphiné, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, La Flèche Wallonne
La Flèche Wallonne
La Flèche Wallonne is a major men's professional cycle road race held in April each year in Belgium.The first of two Belgian Ardennes classics, La Flèche Wallonne is today normally held mid-week between the Amstel Gold Race and Liège–Bastogne–Liège...

 and Paris–Tours one-day races, and the L'Étape du Tour
L'Étape du Tour
L'Étape du Tour is an organised mass participation cyclosportive event that allows amateur cyclists to race over the same route as a Tour de France stage...

 cyclosportive
Cyclosportive
A cyclosportive, or often simply sportive, is a short to long distance, organised, mass-participation cycling event, typically held annually....

 events.

ASO organises the Paris Marathon
Paris Marathon
The Paris International Marathon is an annual marathon which takes place from the Champs-Élysées heading towards the Place de la Concorde and continuing through the city to finish at Foch Avenue....

, cycling events in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 (Tour du Faso
Tour du Faso
The Tour du Faso is a 10-day road bicycle racing stage race held in Burkina Faso in the late fall. Since 2005, the race has been part of the UCI Africa Tour...

) and the Middle East (Tour of Qatar
Tour of Qatar
The Tour of Qatar is a road bicycle race race held in Qatar and is part of the UCI Asia Tour. The race consists of a men's competition over six stages...

), golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

 (the French Open
Open de France
The Open de France is a European Tour golf tournament. Inaugurated in 1906 it is the oldest national open in Continental Europe and has been part of the European Tour's schedule since the tour's inception in 1972....

) and equestrian
Equestrianism
Equestrianism more often known as riding, horseback riding or horse riding refers to the skill of riding, driving, or vaulting with horses...

 events.

The president of ASO is Jean-Etienne Amaury, son of EPA founder Philippe Amaury
Philippe Amaury
Philippe Amaury was a French publishing tycoon and entrepreneur who dominated the French media world. Amaury was the son of the publisher Émilien Amaury....

.
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