Morton, Lutsenko headline first Clásica Jaén with its 40km of gravel - Preview

When the Clásica Jaén Paraíso Interior peloton pounds its way across kilometres and kilometres of Andalusian gravel roads this Monday, the riders may well find that it’s not only dirt tracks and 3,000-plus metres of vertical climbing that’s making Spain’s first-ever pro-level sterrato race such an arduous and interesting challenge.

Following a prolonged drought, forecasts of Andalusia’s first heavy rainfall in weeks this Monday will be doubtless welcomed by local farmers, whose extensive olive tree plantations are expected to form a stunning visual backdrop to the country’s first new one-day race in decades.

But for the 120 or so riders in the Clásica Jaén on Monday, the rain – should it fall –  may well ensure an already tough 196km event, featuring 40 kilometres of off-road climbing, attains even greater levels of difficulty. And with just six riders in each team at a maximum, any rainfall will surely make it even harder for the favourites’ teams to control the race.

With or without the riders donning their rain jackets en masse on Monday, some things won’t change. The 1.1-category race will start shortly after noon in the hilltop town of Baeza and finish some five hours later in the centre of the nearby, equally hilly, Renaissance-era town of Úbeda.

Although only 10 kilometres apart as the crow flies – and with a long history of a friendly rivalry as neighbours that will presumably be buried for the day – the riders’ much more circuitous route between the two eastern Andalusian towns includes no fewer than five separate off-road segments.

While an early segment in the first 50km is likely to spark the break of the day, the hardest of these stony sterrato tracks will prove likely to be the finishing circuit. This is tackled three times (as off-road segment 4, 6 and 7) and includes a 6km sterrato climb rising 300 metres vertically and touching a gradient of 12 per cent at its steepest. 

Although there are a further 700 metres of mainly paved road between the summit of this climb and the finish line in central Úbeda, whoever has managed to break away on such a challenging final ascent will almost certainly be able to stay away to the line.

The contenders

As to who that might be, among the five WorldTour teams taking part, Astana Qazakstan are bringing one of the strongest lineups, which includes Tour de France stage winners Miguel Angel López and all-rounder Alexey Lutsenko. 

All-rounders Julius Van Den Berg and Lachlan Morton will headline EF Education-EasyPost and, particularly given the squad’s well-known collective penchant for gravel racing, either these two or one of their other riders could easily become one of the Kazakh squad’s more important opponents.

Apart from EF, Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal), recently a winner in the Mallorca Challenge series, is also traditionally a major favourite in early season events, while Britain's Connor Swift (Arkéa-Samsic), winner of the Tro Bro León and a top 30 finisher in Paris-Roubaix in 2021, is also another potential contender. 

While Italian team Bardiani-CSF have pulled out because of COVID-related health precautions, Bora-Hansgrohe will bring an intriguing mix of all-rounders including former Tour de France top five finisher Emanuel Buchmann and breakaway specialist Lennard Kamna. American second-division squad Human Powered Health, fresh from a successful Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, are also participating. 

Other younger racers likely to spark interest include Danish all-rounder Andreas Kron (Lotto-Soudal) and U23 World Championships runner-up Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), the Eritrean being, like Wellens, a winner of a Mallorca race this February.

However, one of the biggest potential crowd-pleasers, Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), is no longer taking part. Movistar said in a press release this week that none of the riders, including Valverde, who took part in the recent Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, would be taking part in either the Vuelta a Murcia, Valverde’s home race, or the Clásica de Jaén, "as a precaution" given the "current health situation."  Two Movistar riders tested positive for COVID-19 during Valenciana last week.

In many senses, though, the real star of the race on Monday is the Clásica Jaén itself, already drawing comparisons with the Tro Bro León and Paris-Tours in France and Strade Bianche in Italy. 

But apart from bringing Spain into the world of off-road racing with a vengeance, the Clásica Jaén also goes some way to filling the current enormous dearth of one-day races in the country. And no matter how hard the rain may fall on the off-roads of eastern Andalusia on Monday, in the long-term no one in professional cycling can possibly complain about that.