The Taipei stage of the 2026 Tour de Taiwan kicked off yesterday with an opening ceremony in front of the Presidential Office, marking the start of Taiwan’s only international professional road cycling race.
Speaking at the ceremony, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said the Taipei stage is the only city circuit race in the event. This year’s race started on Ketagalan Boulevard, with riders completing nine laps totaling about 80 kilometers through central Taipei.
The route takes cyclists past major landmarks including the Presidential Office and Jingfu Gate, as well as the tree-lined Renai Road, before finishing back on Ketagalan Boulevard.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Chiang said the event, registered as a Class 2.1 race by the Union Cycliste Internationale, helps showcase Taipei and Taiwan to global audiences through sports and live broadcasts.
According to the Taipei City Government, the race has attracted more than 100 riders from 24 domestic and international professional teams representing around 40 countries including, for the first time, a top-tier UCI WorldTeam.
The five-stage race runs from yesterday to March 19 and covers about 635 kilometers. In addition to stages in Taipei, Taoyuan, Kaohsiung and Liudui (六堆) area in Pingtung, this year’s race also returns to eastern Taiwan after 15 years, with a stage along the scenic “Blissful Route 9” corridor.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS