Madrid, June 05: The Tour De France has been awarded the 2003 Principe De Asturias award, Spain's top international sporting honour, the prize foundation announced.
This year marks the centenary of the cycling race, which was run for the first time in 1903 and is now one of the world's biggest sporting events.
''From its very inception, the Tour De France ... has symbolised sport's most vaunted values: individual endeavour, team work and the will to excel,'' the prize jury said in a statement on Wednesday. The jury was chaired by Spain's Miguel Indurain, who won the tour for a record five years in succession from 1991 to 1995.
Previous winners of the Principe De Asturias award for sport include Lance Armstrong -- the American cyclist who will be bidding for a fifth successive Tour De France win this year – tennis players Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova and athletes Carl Lewis and Sebastian Coe.


Bureau Report