The original Tour of the Basque Country had a troubled history, with eight editions contested between 1924 and 1935, before the
Spanish Civil War seemingly wiped it out for good. One of these early editions is commentated on in
Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel
The Sun Also Rises. In 1952, the
Eibar Cycling Club (erstwhile backers of Spain's first national stage race, the pre-
Vuelta a España Gran Premio República) launched a new 3-day event called
Gran Premio de la Bicicleta Eibarresa to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Former French national champion
Louis Caput took the inaugural edition. In 1969, organizers opted to promote the race (by then five stages long) as
IX Vuelta al País Vasco - XVIII Bicicleta Eibarresa, effectively merging the Bicicleta Eibarresa into a reborn Tour of the Basque Country. However, the palmares of the Bicicleta Eibarresa (featuring Vuelta a España winners
Jesús Loroño and
Rolf Wolfshohl) is not recognized as part of the Tour of the Basque Country's history. The Eibar Cycling Club would relinquish control of the competition following the 1973 edition, while retaining the rights to the
Bicicleta Eibarresa name, which has sporadically been reactivated to help promote other, lower ranked events. The first winner of the Tour of the Basque Country was
Francis Pélissier from France, while the first winner of the 'modern' Tour (1969) was
Jacques Anquetil, also of France. The most successful riders in the history of the Tour are Spain's
José Antonio González, who won the race four times in 1972, 1975, 1977 and 1978, and Spain's
Alberto Contador, who also won the race four times in 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2016. Since its revival in 1969, it has been held every year with the exception of 2020 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. From 2022, the race has a counterpart in the
UCI Women's World Tour - the
Itzulia Women. The winner traditionally dons a
basque beret on the podium. ==Winners==