Profile & Route Clasica de Almeria 2026

The 2026 Clasica de Almeria will be taking place on the 15th of February this year, featuring a golden opportunity for the sprinters in the middle of the very busy Spanish early-season calendar. We take a look at its profile.

The Spanish one-day race was created back in 1988 and quickly it gained an international reputation, featuring foreign winners right from its fifth edition after four years of fully Spanish podiums. It is a race that does not have a fixed profile, and so over the years we've had different types of winners. However since 2008, it's a race that reinvented itself for the sprinters specifically, and there it found its own place in the calendar as one of the most prestigious early-season sprinter challenges.

And the list of winners is not one to shy away from. Over the past 15 years we've had top sprinters such as Theo Bos, Michael Matthews, Sam Bennett, Mark Cavendish, Caleb Ewan, Pascal Ackermann and Alexander Kristoff take victories. In 2024 Olav Kooij was in the middle of his impressive Visma run; whilst in 2025 it was Cofidis' Milan Fretin who took the bunch sprint victory over Max Kanter.

The race is not fully flat, but its profile is designed in a way to see the sprinters thrive. The race begins in Puebla de Vitar, and its first half features a bit of climbing, but nothing dramatic. However the final half of the 190-kilometer long course does not feature any meaningful obstacle, and a bunch sprint into Roquetas del Mar seems rather inevitable.