Clásica Jaén 2025

February 17, 2025 Clásica Jaén, the Spanish version of Strade Bianche, is renowned for its gravel roads and passages through miles and miles olive groves. An unbelievable 70 Million in the province of Jaén alone. The route takes on 10 sectors of gravel totaling 33KM of the 169KM route. There are no sustained climbs but the constant rolling roads add up to over 2,600M. Ibon Ruiz of Equipo Kern Pharma, Yentl Vandevelde of Flanders-Baloise, Edgar Curto and Ricard Fitó of Illes Balears Arabay, Adrian Benito Gonzalez of the Spanish National Team, Clément Alleno of Burgo-Burpellet BH, and Julen Arriola-Bengoa of Caja Rural Seguros RGA made the break of the day. They had just over 3 minutes with 78KM to go and were being controlled by Visma-Lease a Bike and Decathlon AG2R in the peloton. Between mechanicals and dropped riders, the break were reduced to just Arriola-Bengoa and Ruiz at the end of the second sector with 67KM to go. In the peloton, Tim Wellens of UAE-XRG put in a dig after the sector and was marked by Ben Tulett of Visma-Lease a Bike and Egan Bernal of Ineos. The trio were brought back but it instigated counter attacks. With 65KM to go, the bunch were reduced to fewer than 30 riders. There was a moment of calm and Michał Kwiatkowski of Ineos attacked and got a gap right away. Brandon McNulty of UAE-XRG got on his wheel and the pair started to work together. Visma-Lease a Bike and Decathlon AG2R were the big teams to have missed the move. Each time they tried to send a rider on an attack, either UAE-XRG or Ineos were there to mark it. Kwiatkowski and McNulty caught Alleno as well as the Ruiz and Arriola-Bengoa with 58KM to go on the paved road after the third gravel sector. The chase group, led by Visma-Lease a Bike, were 53 seconds behind. Sepp Kuss of Visma-Lease a Bike attacked from the group and brought Nicolas Prodhomme of Decathlon AG2R, Isaac del Toro of UAE-XRG and Bernal with him. Tulett tried to join them but he ended up bringing the rest of the bunch with him which reset the chase with 52KM to go. Tulett put in a big pull for his teammate Wout van Aert and brought the gap to leaders down to 38 seconds but van Aert couldn't hold the wheel. Tulett backed off and Jordan Labrosse of Decathlon AG2R and Wellens immediately went over the top. Bernal bridged to the three chasers and sat on them to protect Kwiatkowski up front. Labrosse stopped pulling and the main chase came back to the peloton once again with 43KM to go. Van Aert switched roles and started to work for Tulett. He picked up the chase and had the gap to the leaders down to 20 seconds with 30KM to go. Labrosse tried to attack again but the team work for Ineos and UAE-XRG was impeccable and Labrosse never made it across. The pattern continued for the next 30KM but the chasers would not get any closer than 25 seconds to the three leaders of Ruiz, Kwiatkowski and McNulty. McNulty got a flat with 15KM to go on the penultimate gravel sector and dropped from the lead group. Ruiz was forced to work with Kwiatkowski for the first time to make sure they stayed away. Kwiatkowski put in an effort and dropped Ruiz with 12KM to go. Del Toro got the news of McNulty's flat and flew the coop from the chase to salvage something for UAE-XRG. Ruiz was caught by Del Toro under 4KM to go but they were 50 seconds behind Kwiatkowski and were battling for the minor steps on the podium. Kwiatkowski crossed the line to give Ineos their first European win of the season. Del Toro dropped Ruiz with 2KM to go to take second place on the day but Ruiz hung on for a very impressive third. After the race, we learned the Egan Bernal had crashed and broken a collarbone. Bernal had just won the Colombian RR and ITT titles and was finally looking like his old self from before his severe crash in 2022.