March 3/25 15:16 pm - Gee Wins O Gran Camino Title

Posted by Editoress on 03/3/25
 

Derek Gee (Israel Premier Tech) won the first UCI stage race overall title of his career on Sunday, the five stage Spanish UCI 2.1 ranked O Gran Camino. Gee beat Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility) by 35 seconds overall, with fellow Canadian Hugo Houle (Israel Premier Tech) finishing 41st overall.

Cort won the first, second and fifth stages - all field sprints - but Gee won the third stage 15.6 kilometre individual time trial to take the lead. He successfully defended the yellow leader's jersey on the Queen Stage the next day, which featured four categorized climbs, including a 10.1 kilometre Cat. 1, and finish atop a Cat.3. Gee took second on the stage in a two-up bike-throw sprint against Sergio Chumil (Burgos Burplet BH), to move 37 seconds ahead of second placed Davide Piganzoli (Polti VisitMalta). He also locked down the Climber's jersey.

On the final stage, he finished with the same time as the bunch to win the overall title by 35 seconds over Piganzoli, with Cort in third at 38 seconds. In addition to winning both the Yellow and KoM jerseys, Gee was third in the Points competition.

Gee is the first Israel Premier Tech rider other than British duo Stevie Williams and Joe Blackmore to claim an overall victory since June 2023, when fellow Canadian Mike Woods triumphed at Route d'Occitanie.

"Today was actually great," he says. "It's pretty cool to win my first GC. I love this race, I wanted to win it coming in - that was the goal - but winning races is not easy. I'm overjoyed."

Gee adds: "I was pretty stressed going into it but I couldn't have asked for a better team. I mean, I was at the front all day. They won every fight into all the important sectors, they controlled the breakaway, and there was almost no stress because they were so good today.

"These are class bike riders. They have amazing palmarès, and we even brought in a couple of our IPT Academy riders [into the squad], and they were amazing. They had to do a lot of work but they stepped up."

This was Derek's first race of the season, as he builds towards the Giro d'Italia in May.

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