The Andalucía Bike Race by Garmin moved forward with its second stage, the first marathon stage of this edition. Jaén witnessed a change of leaders in both the Elite Men and Elite Women categories. Héctor Páez and Darío Cherchi of LeeCougan-Basso claimed victory after taking advantage of a puncture suffered by David Valero in the men’s race, while Natalia Fischer and Claudia Peretti of Extremadura Ecopilas dominated the women’s category with authority.

In the men’s race, the previous leader David Valero suffered a puncture with just 7 kilometres remaining, preventing the Klimatiza Orbea Team duo from repeating their stage win. Ultimately, the LeeCougan-Basso pair took the victory in a time of 2 hours, 9 minutes and 3 seconds, finishing nearly three minutes ahead of their closest rivals from Klimatiza Orbea.

In the women’s category, there was also a change of leaders as Natalia Fischer and Claudia Peretti secured the win in 2 hours, 43 minutes and 30 seconds. The Extremadura Ecopilas duo controlled the entire stage with an iron grip, maintaining an average speed close to 19 km/h and opening a gap of more than two minutes over the second-placed team.

Today’s 51-kilometre stage offered a course tailor-made for MTB lovers and challenge seekers. The opening Climbpro ascent confronted riders with nearly 600 metres of climbing over 10 kilometres and a total of 1,000 metres of elevation gain. The route climbed Jabalcuz to its highest point, followed by rough tracks, demanding ramps, narrow singletracks, short explosive climbs, rocky sections and fast descents through olive groves. The Sierra del Neveral, with its long, technical and fun descents, served as the prelude to the spectacular finish at the Olivo Arena after almost 2,000 metres of accumulated elevation gain.

The men’s podium was completed by David Valero and Marc Stutzmann of Klimatiza Orbea Team, with Alessio Trabalza and Alessio Agostinelli of LeeCougan-Basso finishing third. In the women’s race, first-stage winners Adelheid Morath and Sandra Mairhofer of LeeCougan-Basso took second place, while Mónica Calderón and Tessa Kortekaas of Massi ISB Sport secured third.

The action continues tomorrow with the third and final stage in Jaén before the race moves on to Córdoba. The Olivo Arena will once again host the finish of an intense and very fast stage, starting directly towards Jaén Castle via wide tracks and irregular ramps. The 47-kilometre stage will feature gradients between 6% and 10%, demanding strong traction and sustained pace over rocky sections, flowing corners and fast descents that will be key to creating time gaps. Riders will tackle a total of 1,300 metres of elevation gain.