In order to push「Romantic Provincial Highway 3」to the international level, Hakka Affairs Council has invited Taichung City, Hsinchu County, Miaoli County for the first time to collaborate with Chinese Taipei Cycling Association to hold the competition of「Tour de Taiwan—Romantic Provincial Highway 3」. There were 20 teams of international excellent cycling riders from 30 countries, 7 continents worldwide. Today (13th March), they started from Hsinchu Station of High Speed Rail and rode to Shigang Visitor Information Center. And Mayor Chia-lung Lin has brought the mascot of the Flora Expo「Omima」 and near to 3,000 citizens to cheer for the riders along the both sides of the cycling paths with joys and blessings.

The cycling paths of the 「Tour de Taiwan—Romantic Provincial Highway 3」 competition was across two counties and one city with the length of 158.3 kilometers. There were many people, including Mayor Chia-lung Lin, Deputy County Executive, Guei-jui Deng, Deputy Minister of Hakka Affairs Council, Executive Yuan, Chung-jen Yang, Deputy Secretary-general of City Government, Kun-Ming Kuo, Minister of Council for Hakka Affairs of Taichung City Government, Hung-ji Liu, Director of Sport Bureau, Taichung City Government, Chin-tongWang, Chief of Dongshi District, Pei-ling Hsu, Chief of Shigang District, Wen-shen Kao etc. gathering at the finish line to welcome and cheer for the riders.

Mayor Lin awarded the rewards of 「Asian Champion」 to Arashiro Yukiya from Japanese team and had a group photo with the rider from Taichung, Chien-liang Chen, who is currently studying in Graduate institute, Department of Sport Performance, National Taiwan University of Sport, under a lively atmosphere.

Mayor Lin said, the location of Taichung City is connected to the southern exit of Romantic Provincial Highway 3 and is a cycling city. Taichung has not only the famous cycling companies like Giant or Merida located, but also owns some great cycling paths, including Dongfeng path, Houfeng path and Tanyasheng cycling paths etc. along with the beautiful scenes, enriched cultures and passionate people. In the upcoming future, 2019 East Asian Youth Games will be held in Taichung City and cycling will be one of the self-selected items. We are more than happy to welcome all the excellent riders to come here for bike riding then.

The officer of Council for Hakka Affairs of Taichung City Government said, Taichung is the southern exit of「Tour de Taiwan—Romantic Provincial Highway 3」, the City Government has planned some art spots with local features of culture and scenery to welcome and cheer for the riders. And people there waved Dongshi Xin Din Ban fan and performed bell dance to welcome the guests. Also, the teachers and students from Shigang Elementary School performed words spelled out by people with gong and drum team dressed in Hakka costumes to welcome and cheer for the competition participants.

There were the teachers and students from Shi-chen Elementary School at Dongshi District and Tu-Niou Elementary School at Shigang District dressing in the costumes of Flora Expo cheered for the riders and the local golden music band, Abibai, was involved to play the Hakka songs for the closing ceremony. All these efforts were showing the Taichung Hakka spirits of passion and hospitality.

After a long day of vigorous competition, Avila Vanegas Edwin from Israel team won the「Single Stop Champion」, 「King of sprint(green shirt)」; Arashiro Yukiya from Japanese team won the 「Asian Champion (blue shirt)」; Hen-ming Tsuei from South Korean team won the title of 「King of mountain(red-spotted shirt)」 ; and the 「Individual Champion (yellow shirt)」 was taken by Clarke Jonathan from American United Herts team.