Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility) parlayed a long sprint into victory on the opening stage of O Gran Camiño, holding off Efapel's Santiago Mesa and Giovanni Lonardi (Polti-VisitMalta) to claim the first leader's jersey of the UCI 2.1 stage race.
The Dane narrowly avoided a crash in the final kilometre when he hit an obstacle on the road and ran into another rider, but kept his cool on the wheels before hitting out with 250 metres to go.
Mesa had enough power to draw alongside but not enough endurance to get past the experienced 32-year-old, who added a second stage win in O Gran Camiño to his palmares.
Cort heads into stage 2 with a lead of four seconds over Mesa and six seconds on Lonardi in the general classification.
How it unfolded
The 2025 edition of O Gran Camiño kicked off with a 189.7-kilometre stage from Maia to Matosinhos. The day's breakaway was formed in the first kilometres, with six riders: Filippo Turconi (VF Group-Bardiani-CSF Faizanè), Ander Okamika (Burgos Burpellet BH), Artem Nych and Victor Martínez (Anicolor Tien-21), Mauricio Moreira (Efapel) and Pau Llaneras (Illes Balears Arabay).
The escapees could hardly gain more than two minutes on the peloton, with Turconi taking out the first KOM on Alto de Feitos at kilometre 51.3 and the intermediate sprint in Barroselas at kilometre 66.8. The gap was down to less than a minute before the final KOM, with Martínez, Turconi and Llaneras losing contact as the peloton closed in.
Okamika claimed the maximum points atop the Alto Sao Félix with 46km to go and the intermediate sprint bonus just beyond it, but the gap was falling rapidly under the impetus of VF Group-Bardiani and Groupama-FDJ. The bunch finally closed down the remaining three riders with 40.4km to go thanks to a surge from Israel-Premier Tech.
Immediately VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè's Filippo Magli attacked and was joined by Davide Piganzoli (Polti-VisitMalta) and Pau Martí (Israel-Premier Tech). The move didn't last long, but the attacks continued as Alvaro Sagrado (Illes Balears Arabay) shot out of the bunch in a technical section of the course and the peloton let him go.
On a small climb, Martin Marcellusi (VF Group-Bardiani-CSF Faizanè) attacked to bridge to Sagrado. Then, Jan Castellon (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) went on the attack as well as Sagrado enjoyed a minute's advantage on the main bunch and 35 seconds on Marcellusi.
Castellon's effort was short-lived but as Sagrado powered on with a 1:15 lead with 30km to go, Marcellusi was closing the gap. He finally joined Sagrado with 27.7km to go and the pair set out trying to foil the chase.
The duo put in a brilliant effort as the WorldTour teams took a back seat in the chase to the local Continental teams, with their lead only dipping under one minute with 18.4km remaining.
However, Groupama-FDJ added top-level speed to the chase inside 15km to go, halving the duo's advantage. With 10.5km to go, Sagrado lost touch with Marcellusi up front and behind, Kern Pharma's GC leader Urko Berrade punctured, and despite his team sending riders back to chase, the officials barraged them.
Soudal-QuickStep came forward in the final 10km to lead the chase over the cobbles, bringing Marcellusi's gap under 10 seconds over the course of a kilometre. They swept past Sagrado with 8.4km to go, then set off in pursuit of the Italian. That effort was concluded with 5.8km to go and once Marcellusi was caught, Uno-X Mobility hit the wind for their sprinter.
The peloton could see Berrade's group chasing at nearly a minute in the opposite direction as they reversed course on the divided highway with Uno-X Mobility and Polti-VisitMalta controlling the front heading into the final kilometre.
Polti started the lead-out as the race headed along the scenic coastal road, but Cort powered to the front early, holding off the challenge from Mesa.
Results
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