Antonio Morgado wins Gran Premio Castellon with a brilliant performance by Portuguese UAE Team Emirates - XRG rider
Cycling
The Gran Premio Castellón arrived as the second Spanish classic of 2025. A day after the Camp de Morvedre, which was won by Urko Berrade, a peloton with more prominent names was looking for the victory.
The challenge was not expected to be too demanding. The race organizer himself, in statements to CiclismoAlDía, told us that they had decided not to make the GP Castellón too hard because at this early stage of the year it is what attracts more and better cyclists.
With this, it could already be foreseen that the final would be decided in a sprint. However, even though the peloton tried until the last moment, the victory went to Antonio Morgado, from UAE Team Emirates XRG. The young Portuguese pearl withstood the onslaught of the main group after getting into a group of 6 that attacked at the end of the Collado de Ayódar pass.
As for the race itself, the Gran Premio Castellón started with an early crash for Movistar Team's Lorenzo Milesi. The Italian went to the ground along with Torstein Traeen (Bahrain Victorious). Simultaneously, Carlos García Pierna entered the scene to form the breakaway of the day with 160 km to go.
Little by little, the breakaway was gaining more members, and ended up consolidating to 8 riders at 125 km to the finish with Pierna himself among them. With 100 km to go, the advantage was extended to over 2 minutes.
The breakaway held a 2-minute lead for many kilometers. At 60 km to the finish was when for the first time fell below that figure. The peloton was at 1 minute and 58 seconds. Not much changed, but the main group knew it had completely dominated the race.
The race entered its final 50 kilometers with the peloton riding at a very steady pace. As a result, the gap continued to narrow, at that moment to 1 minute and 40 seconds. It seemed that in the pass of Collado de Ayódar, before the finish, the 8 escapees were going to be neutralized.
However, the excessive relaxation of the peloton caused the breakaway's lead to rise again to 2 minutes and 15 seconds with 40 km to go. But nothing really worrying. Despite gaining that time, the breakaway lost a member, Sergio Trueba, just 1 km later.
With 34 km to go there was a crash in the peloton involving Antonio Pedrero. He was the second Movistar Team rider of the day to crash. Fortunately, there were no serious consequences and everyone involved was able to continue.
At the front of the peloton, the 30 km to go sign activated the legs of all of them. The lead was quickly reduced again to 1 minute and 40 seconds. Before the first pass over the finish line, at 20 km, the breakaway was practically weakened, with only 34 seconds ahead.
The sentence for the escapees, where Carlos García Pierna held on until almost the last moment, came at the start of the Collado de Ayódar pass, 15 km from the finish line. This opened the possibility of attacks by riders like Matej Mohoric in search of victory.
In the final kilometer of the climb, the tension was at its peak. Torstein Traeen went to the ground when he was in the lead. UAE Team Emirates' Alessandro Covi was trying with 10 km to go. He was joined by five riders, including Movistar Team's Davide Formolo, and was 10 seconds behind the peloton on the descent. The other riders were Antonio Morgado, Clement Champoussin, Christian Scaroni and Eric Antonio Fagúndez.
With 5 km to go, the gap between that group and the peloton was 18 seconds. Everything was wide open. Although the peloton pressed until the end, Antonio Morgado made a spectacular performance in the last kilometers. Accelerating in the final kilometer, he managed to get enough of an advantage so that neither the peloton nor the rest of the group that followed him could catch him.
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- I know I just said I wouldn't feed the troll, but Tadej used to race cross, and is a former national champion. He's not a "crosser" but to say he'll never do CX is inaccurate (again)Evan10-03-2025
- you're saying this in a comment thread on an article specifically about Tadej and Jonas? The internet is about connection. People can connect without having to go off topic to argue or arguing for its own sake. The internet can indeed be a positive place where people agree on things. For the sake of dissent, you put forward very odd views that are poorly thought out. That's what trolling is. I'll stop feeding the trollEvan10-03-2025
- Any two matching riders are a spectacle in any race. Do we have to continually state the obvious by always referring to the same two, even if many strongly disagree and argue they are evenly matched in the races where they meet? Isn’t the point of the internet to enhance and further thought and opinion as opposed to agreeing on a very narrow consensus that kilks conversation?Mistermaumau10-03-2025
- As has been said many times, Jonas is a diesel, never going to focus on one day races, Tadej is a roadie, never going to do MTB or CX.Mistermaumau10-03-2025
- Unless you can ignore the winner to enjoy the rest if the race, hence the comment about using imagination. Easier to do during a race than retrospectively when you’ve discovered someone gets their titles, medals, prize money cancelled and disqualified. Of course, it helps if camera crew look for the action, some channels do better at that than others.Mistermaumau10-03-2025
- I think an article dedicated to Emielien Jeannière is also in order today, amazing performance. Let’s not forget that almost a decade ago he was also 2nd in an important race beating a certain TP.Mistermaumau10-03-2025
- More or less how I see it too. Jonas himself warned publicly 6 months in advance. We were warned of the slippery dry gravel BEFORE the race do riders had no excuse not to take it into account. It’s not for nothing Moho warned Tadej not to follow him downhill in MSR, not every rider has the same skills and each has to know his limit. Tadej was too focused on riding with Pidcock to check his limits. After that, yes of course in a peleton if one goes down (for whatever reason) in a critical place, they’re likely to take others within their limits with them, can’t do very much about that without destroying the sport, that will always be a risk to live with. It’s the same as with development in cars, drivers are made to feel safer so take more risk and become more dangerous to others.Mistermaumau10-03-2025
- I agree with everything he says about rider safety related to bikes and the riders themselves. Every bike company talks abou how many watts have saved off a 40k. Clothing is more aero. Materials are refined and made lighter than ever. All of which means more crashes. And then look at Jonas' tragic crash from a year ago. A bummer of a situation, yes - but Jumbo allegedly emailed the organizer about the bad roads. The organizer keeps them in. So Jonas knew there were bad roads, the organizer keeps them in - but who forced Jonas to go so fast or ride that corner in a group situation? back down, take a different line. races are rarely won on the downhills, they're lost. the organizers can only do so much. the tour of poland situation or leaving cars on the road IS bad. but rough roads? the riders need to own this too. As Tadej said, I was going to fast, and I crashed.mij10-03-2025
- Naaahhh... You are fantastic at all types of cycling, only need time to practice. I have seen videos of Tadej when was a child performing as a circus tightrope walker on a unicycle.
maria2024202410-03-2025 - I'm sure we have other top riders Mr M. All I was saying that it is a spectacle to watch this pair go head to head in races and grand tours. You always seem to want make more of what is said as though what is said isn't good enough and then off you go into a long discourse telling us about your extended thoughts on the subject?Cyclingsbestfan10-03-2025