After decades of hosting stages of the Volta a Catalunya, Vuelta a España and Tour de France, in 2025 the Principality of Andorra is set to have its own professional road race, the Andorra MoraBanc Clàssica.
Consisting of a short but very punchy route that remains entirely within the frontiers of the tiny Pyrenean state, the MoraBanc peloton will face 4,300 metres of vertical climbing in just 145 kilometres.
Presented earlier this week, the first edition of the MoraBanc Clàssica will take place on June 22, making it an ideal springboard for riders seeking to hone their climbing form prior to the Tour de France. The initial plan for the 1.1-ranked event is to have 20 teams on the startline, 10 WorldTour and 10 ProTour, with a peloton of 140 riders.
Despite its long and rich history playing host to the Tour, Vuelta and Volta mountain stages and rest days, as well as holding multiple MTB World Cup events, Andorra has never had its own homegrown professional road race.
But as MoraBanc Clàssica ambassador and Lidl-Trek pro Carlos Verona told AS during the event launch on Thursday, with so many professionals now residing in the principality - including Verona - and Andorra government campaigns to promote bikes as a form of transport, organising a road race there only seemed logical.
"When I got here in 2015, there were just a few bike racers like Purito [Joaquim Rodriguez], [Xabier] Florencio, José Joaquín Rojas, not many more. Now there are over 120 pros living here and each summer there are more and more cyclotourists, too."
"All the mountain passes" – 21 in total – "are properly signposted and there are road-user co-existence campaigns including bikes as well."
Working on the project for the last three years, Verona told AS that he is delighted that they have finally - in several senses- been able to get the race on the road.
"We have to thank the Route d'Occitanie organisers" – the stage race based nearby in southern France – "who will provide us with logistical backup.
"They've also brought forward their event on the calendar by a day, so it'll run from Wednesday to Saturday in 2025, and that'll leave us the Sunday free for our race."
According to Verona the race will start in Andorra La Vella, the capital of the principality and finish in La Massana, a village at the foot of the well-known Ordino-Arcalis climb.
"Will I take part in the race? Let's see what my team decide, but obviously I'd like to," he told AS.
"In due course we'll talk to Lidl-Trek about coming, but also Movistar and the other [non-WorldTour] Spanish squads as well."
Further down the line, Verona explained in other interviews, his aim is for a women's one-day road race to be held in Andorra alongside the recently founded new men's event.
