Human Race acquired by Tour de France organisers Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO).

For Human Race, my colleagues, our partners and charities and, I am 100% certain, for you our participants, being bought by the family owned business behind the Tour de France; ASO, is amazing news and very exciting.

A big question for everyone, especially having spoken to many of our regular crew who work on the events, and a number of participants and our partners is ‘what does this mean?’

In short, Human Race will continue in full force. We will continue as the same team to work delivering great events for you. We will continue to help get you across the finish line. But, we will now be able to work with one of the world’s great sporting organisations and explore ways to improve your experience at events as well as before and after.

Our new colleagues at A.S.O are best known for cycling as they deliver and own Le Tour de France, but they also own and deliver the Paris Marathon, L’Etape du Tour, Barcelona Marathon, a great obstacle run called Mud Day and much more.

We have worked in partnership with them for two years now on the Maserati Tour de Yorkshire Ride, ICAP L’Etape London by Le Tour de France and Dragon Ride L’Etape Wales by Le Tour de France. They are world class, fun, professional and visionary and will help raise the Human Race game to continue to improve on the experience we can deliver for you.

For example, only two weeks ago, ASO brought over Chris Froome to ICAP L’Etape London by Le Tour de France on 25th September. He got fully stuck into making it a special day for thousands of riders – riding alongside them on the route, working on the feed station and handing out medals at the finish. We will now be able to offer our runners a chance to get to Paris or other stunning French cities, cycle in iconic events like the Paris-Roubaix sportive and much more.

The A.S.O/Human Race story began in the wake of the Grand Départ of the 2014 Tour de France which took place in Yorkshire. From Leeds to London via Sheffield, the visit to England won over both the riders and the organisers, who wished to continue building on the relationship established with the watching public. Following this excitement, ASO worked with Human Race to create the Maserati Tour de Yorkshire Ride and L’Etape London by Le Tour de France. The values and vision shared by the two companies made the prospect of a merger the obvious choice and this opportunity has become reality with this acquisition of Human Race.

It would be remiss of me to not mention some names. Human Race began 26 years ago with John Lunt and Jasmine Flatters being ahead of their time in many ways. The Windsor Triathlon, our Kingston runs and the BallBuster Duathlon are testament to this. Without their vision and the hard work and passion of many alongside them throughout all this time, our exciting future wouldn’t have been possible.

Human Race has already brought together more than 350,000 people, now in addition to the 800,000 participants registered into the various events organised by A.S.O.

Yann Le Moenner, Managing Director of A.S.O.: “The relations forged with Human Race’s teams and the initial projects put together with enthusiasm and efficiency convinced both sides of the possibility of pooling our skills. The challenges that we will be able to meet thanks to this merger are proposing more events to cycling and running enthusiasts, inventing new formats and spreading our values in the United Kingdom”.

I am really looking forward to the future working alongside our new colleagues to – as our strapline goes – ‘cross the finish line together’ with 100,000s more of you in the future.

I hope to see you at an event soon.

Kind regards

Nick Rusling
CEO of Human Race (part of A.S.O).