Tour of Bulgaria returns for a 64th year with Peter Sagan's Cycling Academy

The six-day category 2.2 event is one of the oldest and most prestigious cycling races in Europe, having been founded in 1924 - more than a decade before the Vuelta a España.

Starting with a 20-kilometre time trial around Nova Zagora - a small town in the southeastern plains of Bulgaria - the 2015 route features stage finishes in Plovdiv, Troyan, Tryavna and Sliven ahead of the final finish at the beautiful city of Veliko Tarnovo on Thursday 3rd September.

Overlooking the Yantra River and perched on a cliff, Veliko Tarnovo is one of the oldest settlements in Bulgaria and is renowned for its numerous churches and noble palaces. The stunning "City of the Tsars" will host a closing Sound and Light spectacle after the deciding 118km stage six.

There will be 20 six-man teams from the World Tour, Pro Continental and Continental ranks featuring in the Tour - including the first Israeli professional cycling team for which Slovakian sensation Peter Sagan acts as an ambassador.

The leader of the race will don the Tour of Bulgaria's unique take on the symbolic yellow jersey - and mirroring the Tour de France there will also be competitions for the green jersey (points classification), polka dot jersey (mountains classification) and white jersey (young riders classification).

Frenchman Remy Di Gregorio - the former FDJ, Cofidis and Astana rider who now plies his trade for French UCI Continental outfit Marseille 13-KTM - is the defending champion of a race in which 41 of the 63 overall winners have been Bulgarian, helping to underline the nation's reputation as a "cycling fortress".

Controversial local favourite Ivailo Gabrovski holds the record number of five wins (between 2003 and 2011) although the veteran made the headlines for the wrong reasons in 2012 when testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs during his Tour of Turkey victory, which was overturned.

Since Gabrovski's last victory the race has been won by Kazakhstan's Maxat Ayazbayev (Continental Team Astana) and, in the last edition in 2013, Frenchman Di Gregorio. Last year's Tour of Bulgaria was cancelled because of an issue with sponsorship.

For the 64th edition of the race time bonuses will be awarded at each intermediate sprint (3", 2", 1") and stage finish (10", 6", 4") to ensure a fiercely competitive race from the outset.

And this year for the first time in history the Tour of Bulgaria will be followed by the Tour of the Black Sea, taking place on the weekend of 5th and 6th September.

The two-day race will feature the same riders and has been given the same category 2.2 status by the UCI. The first stage will run from Bourgas to Dobrich and the second stage from Dobrich to Varna, with the organisers hoping the event will become a traditional and grow year on year.

Following its creation 91 years ago, the Tour of Bulgaria has been among the most prestigious cycling races in Europe, drawing big-name cyclists from the traditional hotbeds of talent such as Italy, France and Netherlands.

Some 120 riders will take part in the Tour in 2015 - considerably more than the 21 riders who lined up for the inaugural event, which ran over 1933 kilometres and 18 days back in 1924. Remarkably, two riders were tied for time at the end of the race, with the overall victory awarded to Kosta Dyulgerov by virtue of his superior tally of three stage wins.

Since those humble beginnings, riders from more than 40 countries have taken part in the Tour of Bulgaria with its popularity surging in counties such as Poland, Turkey and the former Czechoslovakia. One country eager to make a splash in the race today is Israel, who enter a team in 2015 with the backing of that man Sagan.

Although the four-time Tour de France green jersey winner Peter Sagan will not be taking part in the six-day Tour of Bulgaria this August, the Tinkoff-Saxo rider could well have a bearing on the race thanks to the inclusion of his Israel-based development squad.

Israel's first professional cycling team, the Cycling Academy Team was launched in Jerusalem last November and aims to help the development of young Israeli athletes, as well as riders from countries such as Slovakia and Poland.

The team is made up of six Israelis (including U23 road national champion Roy Goldstein and elite time trial champion Yoav Bear), four Poles, two Slovakians, one Spaniard and one Czech - all aged between 16 and 25.

As an ambassador, 25-year-old Sagan has promised to offer guidance and support to the team's roster, setting a high standard of performance and accomplishment.

"I'm very happy for this project and I thank everybody for this idea, and working on this and choosing me for this," Sagan said back in November. "I want to see the growth of a lot of young guys and think this a very great opportunity to work with riders in a country where cycling is not very popular."

At the time, team president Ron Baron told the Israeli media that he hoped Sagan's story would inspire some of the country's cycling talent to shine in the face of adversity.

"Peter comes from a small country of five million people who normally would not have the chance to become top professionals like guys from Italy or Germany or France. But he made it, and I think that he will be an inspiration for young cyclists from Israel," Baron told the Jerusalem Post.

The Cycling Academy Team has enrolled former pro road racer Ron Margaliot as manager for the opening season alongside sporting directors Jan Valach, formerly a coach for the Slovakian national team, and Dror Pekatch, a former mountain bike pro.

Baron's hopes his team will race at the world's highest level in "a few years" were done a world of good when Czech youngster Daniel Turek notched the team's first two wins in quick succession in May with back-to-back stage victories in the Tour d'Azerbaidjan and the Tour de Berlin.

Poland's Bartosz Warchol has since won the Visegrad 4 Bicycle Race in the GP Polski while 24-year-old Bear became the Israeli national time trial champion for the third successive year - which bodes well ahead of the Cycling Academy's maiden participation in the Tour of Bulgaria later this month.