In 2006 E.ON announced its sponsorship of the Tour of Britain cycling race.

Why The Tour of Britain?

The Tour of Britain is a cycling event that returned to the British cycling calendar in 2004 after an absence of five years. The Tour of Britain is the UK’s only major professional road cycle race with teams from across the world taking part and has placed itself on a global platform along with other major races such as The Tour de France and Giro d’Italia.

E.ON is in the second year as an Official Partner of The Tour of Britain.

E.ON exclusively sponsors the coveted ‘King of the Mountains’ Competition; the red polka dot jersey that is awarded to the individual cyclist who achieves most points on the various elevated sections or ‘climbs’, for each stage of the race.

As the 2006 race demonstrated, our sponsorship has enabled us to communicate directly with local communities and raise the profile of our brand throughout some of our key regions.

The 2008 race

The Tour of Britain 2008 will begin with iconic circuit in Central London on Sunday 7 September, and will culminate after 8 days of racing – a day longer than 2007 – in Liverpool, the European Capital of Culture on Sunday 14 September.

Starting in front of the London Eye, the race will pass through the South of England, Somerset, the West Midlands, Yorkshire, the North East (a new stage for 2008), Glasgow and finishing in the North West.
16 teams and 96 riders will make up the field and we hope there will be a strong GB contingent – last year, four of teams that took part in the Tour de France competed: Agritubel, Team CSC, Barloworld and T-Mobile.

In 2007, the overall victory was taken by Frenchman Romain Feillu who won by just a few hundredths of a second – the closest ever Tour of Britain. Meanwhile in the other jersey competitions it was a clean sweep for the Brits with Mark Cavendish taking victory in the Points and Hot Spot Sprints competitions and Ben Swift winning the E.ON King of the Mountains jersey.