It is a realistic and disenchanted approach with which Ezequiel Mosquera met with journalists present at O Gran Camino 2025 to discuss the critical issues affecting not only his race (which, listening to him speak, it is clear how much he cares about) but, more generally, the world of cycling. The latter, according to the convinced opinion of the organizer of the short stage race in Spain, now revolves more and more around UCI points and this can only complicate, in his vision, the development and appeal of events like his.

"The O Gran Camino project has a context, a package, and arguments that allow us to cross into Portugal and have the support of institutions and large companies. And they support us because this is a stage race and not a classic," Mosquera began before delving into the heart of the problem.

"The reality today is that riders race for points and often it is managers who decide their calendar, and I understand that. You can't tell a rider 'come race a stage here' when first place in our stage gives 14 points, second place 9, third 5, fourth 3, and in a classic of the same category you earn 125 points for first place and 85 for second. They ask me 'Why don't you organize 5 classics?' I don't want to do that. Because I have a stage race with a weight, dimension, and growth potential superior to any classic at the same level. So, as we are now, even though this is a 5-day race that is well-organized, well-curated, and well-designed, we can't do more than what we already do, at least with our means. Why? Because in five days we put up 710 points against the 3000 we could give if we managed 5 classics. In this regard, I'm also noticing that many Pro Series stage races are starting to do parallel classics. Should I do a Camino Portuguese classic and then O Gran Camino? Why? Because teams tell me that if I did a classic, they would then also participate in the next race? But why should I organize a classic and then a stage race a few days later? Just because we're at it? Okay, but where would I do it? And then, you always earn 600 points with one and 710 with the other?"

His reasoning, presented lucidly and calmly, is absolutely understandable and rests on the assumption that the system currently governing professional cycling is based on poorly balanced mechanisms.

"The system is wrong, absurd, indefensible, and scandalously disproportionate. Because it cannot be that Jonas Vingegaard comes here, wins three difficult stages and the overall, and earns the same points as the second-place finisher in the Clasica de Almeria," Mosquera continued, backed during the press meeting by Oscar Pereiro, responsible for relations with teams and riders.

"We are convinced that if we had parity in terms of point system, at this moment we would have an extraordinary racing context. If we look at what we did last year and consider that we are an event in its fourth edition, we have had a crazy growth. The situation this year? I am convinced that the weather played an important role, but I am sure that the points issue had a greater influence. In the end, at Paris-Nice the climate is colder than ours and it's like that every year, but teams still go there," said the 2006 Tour de France winner before again giving the floor to Mosquera to address another delicate issue, namely the preservation of Spanish stage races.

"I speak in defense of stage races. I have nothing against classics, but we are a country of multi-day races. It cannot be that a classic gives more points than a stage of the Vuelta a España. Organizing a stage race is much more difficult. You need the same means multiplied by ten because the same thing must be set up in multiple places simultaneously, over consecutive days, and you have to move and reach multiple locations, involve more institutions, more sponsors... The fundamental axis around which the cycling world revolved is changing. We have reached the point where teams configure their calendar not based on the races they are interested in, but based on those that guarantee more points. Most people do not know all these dynamics, these abysmal scoring differences, well... we must tell them. We must tell them that there is a problem. A structural problem that is changing the foundations of cycling."

Such a change could clearly impact the future of cycling and many other races that, to survive, be sustainable, and at the same time enjoy good visibility, might be forced to reinvent themselves or change radically. However, this does not seem to be the path that the O Gran Camino organizers will seek to pursue in the future.

"Next year? We don't know. I don't know if there is a possibility of changing this scoring criterion. We must be intelligent and objective. What we know is that we want to maintain the project as it was born."

A project that, although young, is already deeply felt and rooted in the territory it represents and is inextricably linked to the Camino de Santiago, which, through such a stage race, can be even more enhanced and further promoted alongside the traditions and millennial history that characterize this corner of the Iberian Peninsula. A place that wants and needs to recognize itself in O Gran Camiño as it has made itself known until today: a suggestive stage journey representative of this land.