Andorra MoraBanc Clàssica 2025

June 22, 2025 It's not often that we get a brand new race on the calendar but today we have two, the Copenhagen Sprint and Andorra MoraBanc Clàssica 2025. Both are one day races but they couldn't be more different. The Andorra MoraBanc Clàssica is just 115KM long and goes up and down the valley then turns off up the mountain sides to take on four climbs that add up to over 3,500M of elevation. Starting in Andorra La Vella, the race heads straight up the 27KM, 5% climb of Port d'Envalira. The Col d'Ordino, another gradual, 9KM climb, tops out halfway through the stage. 20KM of descending takes the riders to the penultimate climb of Col de la Comella, 4.5KM but steeper at 7.4%. The final climb to the top of the Coll de la Botella is nearly 12KM at 7%. Nearly every rider will have ridden each of these climbs on numerous occasions and many will feel this is a home race for them given the amount of riders who live at altitude in Andorra. Many riders from La Route d'Occitanie which concluded yesterday treated today like a fifth stage, some made up the early break of nine. The group consisted of Jardi Van Der Lee of EF-Education EasyPost, Walter Calzoni of Q36.5, Alan Jousseaume of Total Energies, Abel Balderstone of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, Josh Burnett of Burgos-Burpellet BH, Txomin Juaristi of Euskatel-Euskadi, Odd Christian Eiking of Unibet-Tietema Rockets, Lorenzo Galimberti of Petrolike, and José María García of Illes Balears Arabay. Lidl-Trek were chasing behind, just 90 seconds back with 62KM to go on their way to the Col d'Ordino. Calzoni, Galimberti, and Juaristi were dropped but the other six riders crested the Col d'Ordino with 30 seconds and started the long descent into the town of Ordino. Davide Formolo of Movistar led the peloton over the climb and pushed the descent through every corner. He caught the break with 40KM to go as they entered Ordino and a few kilometers, rain began to fall. Fortunately, most of the descending was done and the riders were about to start the climb the Col de la Comella. Formolo continued to ride on the front from the bottom and his pace was so high that the Lidl-Trek riders queueing behind did not follow which gave Formolo a gap. He persisted but Toms Skujiņš of Lidl-Trek matched him watt for watt and brought Formolo back 1KM before the top. Around 30 riders were left in the peloton as they began the short but damp descent into La Vella. Diego Uriarte of Equipo Kern Pharma attacked on the downhill but he only had 12 seconds at the start of the final 12KM climb of the Coll de la Botella. Skujiņš hit the front once again and brought Uriarte back with over 10KM to climb. Julien Bernard for Lidl-Trek took over and ramped the pace up, dropping riders one by one off the back. When he pulled off with 6.2KM to go, Mattias Skjelmose attacked and was quickly followed by Enric Mas of Movistar. Cristián Rodríguez of Arkéa-B&B Hotels bridged over and with 5KM to go, Sebastian Berwick of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA joined to make four at the front. Berwick set a hard pace and Skjelmose was forced to drop back and set his pace. The lead group got quite tactical with Mas and Rodríguez shadow boxing while Berwick was nervous about where the next attack might come from. Skjelmose found his way back to the front group with 2.2KM to go and the pace went out of the group. Esteban Chaves of EF-Education EasyPost made his way up to the front group and with leaders all watching each other, he took his opportunity and attacked with 700M to go. Mas closed the gap and reset the situation until 200M to go when Skjelmose launched for the line. Mas got on the wheel with Rodríguez following but neither had the speed to come around and it was the Dane that took the win in the inaugural edition. Rodríguez came around Mas, who stopped pedaling 15M before the line, for second place. Chaves rolled in for fourth with Berwick in fifth.