Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) repeated for the elite males’s victory at Castellón Gravel Race on Saturday, whereas German gravel champion Carolin Schiff (Canyon CLLCTV) rode solo for the elite girls’s title on the 97km occasion.
Since Valverde’s preliminary foray into gravel in 2023 after 12 years on the WorldTour, he has received a trio of UCI Trek Gravel World Series races, all in Spain. Schiff, who additionally moved from a protracted profession on the street to gravel, has notched 9 UCI Gravel World Series podiums in two seasons, in addition to a signature win at Unbound Gravel 200 and The Traka 200.
Valverde opened his 2025 marketing campaign two weeks in the past on the opening spherical of the Spanish Gravel Cup, ending properly exterior the highest 20 at Tres Cantos Gravel. The subsequent two rounds of the Spanish sequence are additionally a part of the UCI Gravel World Series, 114 Gravel Race in late March and La Indomable in late April.
Castellón Gravel Race moved two months earlier on the calendar than the inaugural version in 2024 and served because the European lead-off occasion within the UCI Gravel World Series, promoting out with 800 contributors. The hilly circuit within the mountainous area of Castellón included 72% gravel roads and a couple of,500 metres of elevation achieve, a relentless quantity of climbing that led to a remaining 6km descent in Llucena and a stiff uphill end into Llucena.
Valverde rode with Tiago Ferreira of Portugal and Sascha Weber of Belgium by the mid-point of the race, holding a slim 10-second margin over one other trio that included Italian Matteo Fontana, Spanish rider Raul Rodriguez Jimenez (GR-100 MTB DC) and Frenchman Mathus Loman.
Once on the ultimate climbing part, Valverde and Ferreira continued with Fontana now within the lead trio. Valverde then used a remaining acceleration on the uphill end to distance Ferreira and journey solo throughout the end with 12 seconds in hand, whereas Fontana led to third, 1:18 again. Weber was subsequent in fourth at 3:01 down.
Schiff carried a four-minute margin over the Spanish duo of Meritxell Figueras Garangou (Sant Just-Agrupacio Ciclista) and Marta Romeu Solaz (Movistar) as she sped away on the second half of the course to win her 2025 season debut.
Defending champion Sofía Rodríguez used the ultimate climbing part to bridge to her Spanish compatriots and surge forward of Solaz on the ultimate uphill to take second, 1:27 behind Schiff, whereas Solaz was one other 8 seconds again in third. Garangou and Jade Treffeisen of Germany rounded out the highest 5.
Other notable riders within the males’s subject have been Jan Bakelants, ending twenty second and Freddy Ovett and Nicholas Roche, the 2 driving collectively throughout the road in 87th and 88th, respectively. On the ladies’s aspect, Elena Dušková of Lavita was sixth and Maddie Nutt of United Kingdom, who received Safari Gravel Race final yr, was seventh.
The 2025 Trek UCI Gravel World Series, now in a fourth season, is a set of 33 races which function qualifiers for the UCI Gravel World Championships, October 17-18 in Nice, France. With a cross-over calendar from final fall, the primary two rounds have been held in October in Seymour, Victoria, Australia and on the 2024 UEC European Gravel Championships in Asiago, Italy.
Three March occasions are subsequent on the calendar for the UCI Gravel World Series, with Gravel Brazil on March 9 serving as the primary World Series cease in South America. That is adopted by Turnhout Gravel in Belgium on March 23 and 114 Gravel Race on March 29, which is a 123km point-to-point race from Elvas, Portugal to Badajoz, Spain.
