UAE successfully neutralizes Hirschi and sees Christen win in Mallorca

Jan Christen has won the first of five races on Mallorca. The only 20-year-old Swiss rider from UAE Team Emirates-XRG broke away from a group of three in the final kilometer after a brutal race all day. Marc Hirschi, who outsprinted his former UAE teammates in the 1969 Clàssica Comunitat Valenciana on Sunday, finished fifth.

It's time for the Challenge de Mallorca 2025 this week in Spain. These are a series of Spanish one-day races in Mallorca, which form a sort of unit anyway. The first race was called the Trofeo Calvià; it went up and down almost 150 kilometers from and to Palmanova, a town just diagonally below Palma.

Along the way, numerous small climbs: Coll des Tords, Coll den Claret, Coll de Sóller, and Coll de sa Gramola. Climbs between five and ten kilometers at an average of about five percent; it was tough enough at the beginning of the season. From the beginning, the race was on under the Spanish sun. And it didn't stop all day. A real leading group, therefore, never formed.

Scaroni most passionate, Christen smartest

At more than 50 kilometers from the finish, Cristian Scaroni (Astana), Nairo Quintana (Movistar), and Roger Adria (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) opened the finale. They were joined by almost all important riders, taking us into the tricky finale. Scaroni was the most passionate, but Christen proved to be the smartest. When the Swiss joined Scaroni eight kilometers from the finish, it awaited that attack.

That came in the final kilometer, the first and only attack Christen fired all day. With it, he rode Scaroni and Red Bull man Frederik Wandahl out of the wheel and could celebrate early in the season. Scaroni did win the sprint for spot two, ahead of UAE man António Morgado. Hirschi, who his former teammates boxed in, finished fifth.  

Results Trofeo Calvià 2025 

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