Romain Bardet (Factor Racing) and Sofía Gómez Villafane (Specialized Off-road) claimed victory at the Castellón Gravel Race on Sunday, with both taking solo wins in the UCI Gravel World Series race that starts and finishes in the Spanish village of Llucena.
Last week's Santa Vall winner Mads Würtz Schmidt (Specialized Off-road) claimed second in the men's race, with the European Champion finishing more than two minutes back from Bardet, while Mathijs Loman (Canyon x DT Swiss ATR) took third.
In the women's event it was Morgan Aguirre (PAS Racing) who took the runner-up position while new gravel racer Elena Hartmann – who won the Swiss national time trial title on the road from 2022-24 – came third.
"In the closing moments of the race I did get a good reminder at the end of the race that you don’t ease up specially when you aren’t aware of time gaps because I got quite the surprise when Morgan Aguirre was right behind me with just one kicker left before the finish line," said Villafane in a social media post.
The Castellón Gravel Race is the second event in the UCI Gravel World Series so far this year, with the racing in the qualifying series for the UCI Gravel World Championship having kicked off in 2026 with The Ceder in South Africa, which was won by Hayley Preen (Honeycomb 226ers) and Filippo Colombo (Scott-SRAM MTB).
Position | Rider | Time |
|---|---|---|
1 | Romain Bardet | 3:16:39 |
2 | Mads Würtz Schmidt | +2:04 |
3 | Mathijs Loman | +4:27 |
4 | Anton Stensby | +5:10 |
5 | Paul Voss | +6:03 |
Position | Rider | Time |
|---|---|---|
1 | Sofía Gómez Villafane | 3:54:57 |
2 | Morgan Aguirre | +17 |
3 | Elena Hartmann | +43 |
4 | Karolina Migon | +1:06 |
5 | Sophie Wright | +2:00 |
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