Filippo Ganna has taken a prestigious Strava record from Remco Evenepoel in a show of form as he prepares for his 2025 season debut at the Étoile de Bessèges in France on Wednesday.
Ganna has three major goals for 2025: Milan-San Remo, Pars-Roubaix and a stage at the Tour de France.
"This is not the time to choose, this is the time to win," Ganna told La Gazzetta dello Sport in early January. "This will be the goal for next season, to win as much as possible."
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Ganna has put aside his track racing ambitions after the Paris Olympic Games and wanted to start the 2025 road season aggressively.
His Strava record hunting in Spain at the weekend suggests he was working on the power and climbing ability needed to fight for victory at Milan-San Remo. He was second behind solo attacker Mathieu van der Poel in 2023 and was part of the Tadej Pogačar-inspired attack in 2024.
Ganna spent much of January in Gran Canaria and then joined his Ineos Grenadiers teammates for a training camp in Spain's Costa Blanca. Riders use the Coll de Rates and other climbs in the area near Calpe and Dénia for testing and controlled training.
Pogačar smashed the prestigious Coll de Rates record in December in an organised effort with several UAE Team Emirates teammates at the end of a training camp. Ganna broke the record for the south approach to the Colle de Rates, known as 'Tarbena climb to Rates'. It is 4.97km long with an average gradient of 5.6%.
Ganna's weight is listed at 83kg but used his immense power to beat Evenpoel's time by a single second, setting a time of 10:10 for the climb. During the same ride, he also took the 11.19km gradual 'Benigembla to Castels', taking the Strava record from Lennert Teugels and bumping Evenepoel down to third place.
Ineos have promised to race more aggressively as they strive to be successful in 2025, with Egan Bernal also claiming a Strava record in Colombia as he works on his early-season form.
He set a new record of 14:39 for the 5.9km Belisario-Patios climb, riding at an average speed of 24.2 km/hour and 360 watts at altitude above the Colombian capital Bogotá.
"For those of you who live in the capital or have done this climb, you know there is something special about it. If you breathe cycling, it is one of the hardest climbs in the world and today I finally managed to improve the best time - after several attempts," Bernal wrote on Instagram at the weekend.
