February 16, 2025
Leaving Figueira da Foz at the mouth of the Mondego River, the route does three different circuits, one South and one East of Figueira da Foz, before doing three laps of the Northern circuit and finishing back in town. 2,000M over 193KM doesn't sound like a lot but the finishing circuit is difficult and may be quite selective. Each lap is just under 30KM long with two main climbs. The first is more difficult. Rua Parque Forestal is 2.3KM at almost 8% and the second one of Enforca Cães is just 800M but at 7%, the bunch will take it on at full speed in the last two laps.
Light rain came down during sign on but the sun came out for a beautiful day of racing on the coast. The sea was crashing on to the rocky shores as Javier Ibáñez of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, Nil Gimeno of Equipo Kern Pharma, Nicolás Alustiza of Euskaltel-Euskadi, Rubén Fernández of Anicolor-Tien 21, Jorge Gálvez of Aviludo-Louletano-Loulé, João Medeiros of Credibom, Delio Fernández of APHotels & Resorts, and André Ribeiro of GI Group Holding set the pace in the break with 68KM to go. Lidl-Trek were doing the chasing but UAE-XRG and Cofidis were present near the front. With 55KM to go, teams started to position their leaders in anticipation of the second of three ascents up Rua Parque Forestal.
The gap came right down and the catch was made with 51KM to go on the steep bottom slopes of Rua Parque Forestal. Romain Bardet of Picnic-PostNL put in a dig which pulled out a select group. A number of attacks tried to go but there was not enough fatigue in the peloton for any successful moves to stick. Filippo Ganna of Ineos was the first to get a gap. He went over the top and had clear road behind him off the descent. No team had enough organization to get a chase going so many were reduced to one off attacking from the bunch. Ganna hit the spectacular rolling coastal road at 39KM to go with a gap of 22 seconds to Michael Valgren of EF-Education EasyPost and Natnael Tesfatsion of Movistar who had broken away in the disorganization. By the time Ganna heard the bell for one 30KM lap to go, Valgren and Tesfatsion had been caught by the peloton of around 45 riders and he had extended his gap to 35 seconds.
Ganna was caught with 21KM to go, about 500M before the top of Rua Parque Forestal as António Morgado of UAE-XRG came storming passed. Jefferson Cepeda of Movistar tried to get on terms with Morgado but ended up being caught by a reduced group of 25 riders. Mikkel Honoré of EF-Education EasyPost and Jon Agirre of Euskaltel-Euskadi went in pursuit. They were swept up as Morgado went up and over Enforca Cães. On the 6KM flat run to the finish, Soudal Quickstep got organized and were piling on the pressure in the peloton which had the gap down to 20 seconds. Movistar added a man but it was all too late. Morgado hit the line and saluted his cheering countrymen in victory with the peloton just 200M behind. Paul Magnier of Soudal Quickstep won the reduced sprint for second with Mathias Vacek of Lidl-Trek behind in third.