Hualien gears up for 8th annual Taiwan KOM Challenge

2019/10/24

The eighth annual Taiwan KOM Challenge gets underway Oct. 25 in eastern Taiwan’s Hualien County, involving 730 cyclists from 42 countries and territories contesting one of the world’s toughest hill climb courses.
 
 Organized by Taiwan Cyclist Federation and the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the 105-kilometer race features top athletes from elite cycling teams such as Astana, CCC-Liv, EF Education First and Katusha-Alpecin.
 
 Defending champion John Ebsen from Denmark and reigning silver medalist Benjamin Dyball from Australia are to be challenged by big-name participants like Nathan Hass from Australia, Steff Cras from Belgium, Kenny Nijssen from the Netherlands and Morimoto Makoto from Japan.
 
 Taiwan is to be represented by homegrown talents such as Fan Yung-yi, Feng Chun-kai, Huang Wen-chung, Liu Shu-ming and Peng Yuan-tang.
 
 According to TCF, the event boasts a record 74 women cyclists like Marianne Vos from the Netherlands, the 2012 Olympic gold medalist and multiple world champion.
 
 Starting at 6 a.m. from Qixingtan Beach, entrants will race along the Pacific coast, through the spectacular Taroko Gorge before spinning west into central Taiwan’s Nantou County and finishing at Wuling on Mt. Hehuan in Taroko National Park.
 
 The riders will ascend at an average rate of 8 percent for the first 80 kilometers. This tops out at 27 percent during the final 10 kilometers en route to the highest point of Taiwan’s highway system at 3,275 meters above sea level.
 
 First staged in 2012 as part of the annual Taiwan Cycling Festival, the race was voted among the world’s top 10 most difficult cycling races in 2014 by French magazine “Le Cycle.”

Source: Taiwan Today (https://taiwantoday.tw/index.php)