UCI Gran Fondo World Series racing resumed in Morocco, Casablanca 23 February where reining 22-year old UCI Gran Fondo World Champion Maxim Pirard from Belgium finished first.

With just over 135 riders, the gran fondo race had one of the smallest UCI GFWS fields ever, but with many foreign riders attending the competition was world class.

Pirard, a former Bahrain Merida Pro Cycling Team U23 rider, left no doubt he was the strongest rider, driving a 4-man break before dropping his breakaway companions Kacper Kistowski, Jamie Anderson and Patrick Cocquyt with 30km remaining to win by over 3 minutes.

With sunny conditions, outstanding support and a flat 116km course that started 20km away from the planned location, participants thought the event was a big success.

Rider Andrej Žavbi said afterwards, “I would like to commend the kindness of people who are always ready to help and cheered loudly along the line. The line was guarded by the military and the police, so it was very well taken care of. I All in all, this is a much different experience than the UCI gran fondos organized in Europe.” 

Riders finishing in the top 20% of their age group qualify for the 2020 UCI Gran Fondo World Championships taking place in Canada later this year.

RESULTS 2020 UCI GRAN FONDO CASABLANCA

1 PIRARD Maxim 2:45:56
2 KISTOWSKI Kacper 2:49:06
3 ANDERSON Jamie 2:49:06
4 COCQUYT Patrick 2:49:06
5 ERRAFAI Mohammed Amine 2:52:27
6 PUZANOV Dmitry 2:52:27
7 HOLT Ian 2:52:49
8 RIGG Andrew 2:52:49
9 SAHMOUD Oussama 2:54:07
10 NOWACZYK Maciej 2:54:08

GFDN Worldwide Gran Fondo Calendar