Lidl-Trek and Red Bull see talents shine, but it’s Morgado who gifts himself a birthday win on Mallorca

Trofeo Calvià is the opening race of Mallorca’s early-season series of one-day events. While Thursday’s Trofeo Ses Salines is raced as a team time trial, Wednesday (as on the weekend days) offered a standard road race. There were plenty of metres of climbing, but nothing with truly fearsome gradients.

That meant a wide range of riders could be in the mix beforehand. UAE Team Emirates-XRG arrived with António Morgado — third here last year — plus Benoît Cosnefroy and Pavel Sivakov, while EF Education-EasyPost also fielded strong climbing legs in Georg Steinhauser. Still, on paper the race also looked suitable for punchy finishers like Christian Scaroni, Michael Matthews, Marc Hirschi, or Magnus Cort.

In the rain, the peloton set off for a test of roughly 148 kilometres. It took a long time before a move finally stuck, but eventually four riders got clear: Andrea Pietrobon, Jonathan Caicedo, Ådne Holter and Eivind Broholt Fougner.

From that quartet, only Holter managed to stay ahead for an extended period. Behind, it was Boichis and Steinhauser who bridged up, creating a lead trio with around 60 kilometres still to race.

In the rain, the three leaders built a neat advantage of close to two minutes. That was the signal for Morgado to try something on his birthday. On Mallorca’s rolling climbs, the Portuguese rider attempted to close in on the front group, though at first he didn’t appear to be making huge inroads.

With help from Héctor Álvarez — the Lidl-Trek rider racing for the Spanish national selection — the gap began to come down. On the descent, the Portuguese and Spaniard flew towards the leaders, and on the day’s final climb they made the connection. That left five riders at the front with 15 kilometres to go.

Álvarez then used the last rising sections to attack again, accelerating clear. Morgado followed with some effort, while Boichis and Holter limited the damage and remained within striking distance. Up front, the leading duo worked well together — and that made life difficult for the chasers behind.

In the end, nobody brought Álvarez and Morgado back. So it came down to a sprint between the Lidl-Trek talent and the UAE Team Emirates-XRG talent. It was a tight, entertaining finish, but Morgado managed to beat Álvarez — who had to sit down early in the sprint — and claim the win. Boichis began his first year in the pro peloton with fourth place, behind Holter.