Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney is officially headed to Lidl-Trek for 2027, ending a nine-year tenure with Canyon-SRAM, her new team confirmed on Tuesday.

Niewiadoma-Phinney is coming to the end of one of her best seasons yet, most recently finishing second in the women's road race at the World Championships, after a summer that saw her win atop Mont Ventoux, wear the yellow jersey and finish second overall at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

Despite a highly successful stint with Canyon-SRAM that has seen her spend most of her career with the German team and win one Tour de France and take four more podiums, the Polish rider has long been understood to be moving for a new team for 2027, and that was confirmed on Tuesday.

She has initially signed a two-year contract with Lidl-Trek, where she will be their main GC leader as she continues her mission to win the Tour de France once again.

"I am super excited about the next two years," she said, with her contract taking her to the end of 2028, at which point she will be 34.

"I have spent many years on the same team and the decision to move forward and change the environment wasn't easy until I talked to Lidl-Trek. Instantly, I felt the team had a plan, trust and belief in me. I knew that when we joined forces we could aim for the highest dreams.

"I’m looking forward to working with people and professionals who have a fresh look at my abilities and at what we can achieve together, being guided from a different perspective and just new fresh air. I’m looking forward to learning from the team, what we can improve, how we can get faster and how we can raise our hands more often when crossing the finish line."

Lidl-Trek have already been busy on the transfer market this season, with Ally Wollaston, Arlenis Sierra and Julia Kopecký all on their way to the team in 2027, but Niewiadoma-Phinney is undoubtedly their headline signing of the season and a real coup in terms of securing a GC rider.

She will join the likes of Niamh Fisher-Black, Isabella Holmgren and Ricarda Bauernfeind as climbers who are already at the team, and it will be interesting to see how Lidl-Trek share out GC responsibilities in 2027.

"I’ve got so many goals I want to work hard to achieve in the next few years and I’m sure I will be able to make it happen with the team," she said. "While I don’t really know them yet, I feel full trust in Lidl-Trek. That’s what makes me so excited! I feel I made a really good decision to sign with Lidl-Trek.”

My view

Lidl-Trek will only be the third team of Niewiadoma's career, having turned pro at 18 with Rabobank-Liv Giant, then moving to Canyon-SRAM in 2018.

For Lidl-Trek, who have been building their men's and women's programmes steadily since Lidl came on board as sponsors and owners, securing one of the very top GC riders on the market is a huge get.

"Bringing Kasia into Lidl-Trek is a significant moment for our women’s program,” women’s team manager Frank Schleck said.

"She is one of the most accomplished and respected riders of her generation, but what excites us most is the way she races. Kasia is courageous. She is aggressive. She is willing to take responsibility and make a race rather than simply wait for it to happen. That mentality fits perfectly with the identity we want for this team.

"Her arrival gives us another major leader for the biggest races on the calendar, but her impact will go far beyond results. Her experience, professionalism and competitive mentality can help raise the level of the entire group."

As for Canyon-SRAM, Niewiadoma-Phinney's departure will naturally leave a huge gap which the team will not be able to fill like-for-like, but they have high hopes for Antonia Niedermaier, who already announced herself as a possible successor with her fourth overall at the Tour this year.

The team have made two signings for 2027 so far, Shirin van Anrooij from Lidl-Trek – who will officially change allegiances in October, in time for cyclo-cross season – plus talented youngster Jasmin Liechti.

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British track sprinter Katy Marchant has announced her retirement after a long and distinguished career racing for Team GB.

The 33-year-old will leave the sport as the reigning Olympic champion in the Team Sprint, which she won with Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell in Paris, and with a host of other titles from a 13-year career.

"I’ve achieved more than I could ever have dreamed of achieving," she said in an interview with BBC Sport, after the announcement.

"It feels really strange. It’s not been a difficult decision. Don’t get me wrong, there have been moments where I’ve thought, 'Could I just, should I just, what if I just?' But I know what it takes to push on for another two years."

Marchant’s cycling journey began in 2013 when she switched from athletics and joined British Cycling’s Senior Academy. The following year she won Bronze medals in the Keirin and Team Sprint at the under-23 European championships, before winning four senior national titles in 2015.

Her first Olympic success came at the 2016 games in Rio where she took Bronze in the Sprint event behind Kristina Vogel and fellow Brit Becky James.

Marchant had to wait until after the birth of her first child to reach her best results at the highest level, with 2024 an outstanding year in which she won the European 500m TT, the Team Sprint rainbow jersey and Olympic gold, both with Finucane and Capewell.

Her final career success came racing for England at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where she took the Team Sprint Silver medal, this time with Capewell and Rhianna Parris-Smith.

"I’m incredibly proud of where I’ve got and what I’ve done. I just don’t want to make those choices anymore to keep doing what it takes to get to LA," she said.

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Emma Langley (Haute Factory Racing) and Matt Wilson (Scott Sports USA) claimed the win at the inaugural Pulaski MTN-X Gravel Bike Race in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia on Saturday.

Starting and finishing in downtown Pulaski, the course took riders through the rugged landscape of the New River Valley in Southwest Virginia: crossing Case Knife Ridge, over Big Walker Mountain, into the heart of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, before climbing back over Big Walker Mountain on the return.

Following an Enduro-style race model, a total of six timed sectors across paved, gravel, and mixed-surface roads were used to determine the winners in the 102-mile route with 12,602 feet of elevation gain.

The six sectors totalled 68.8 miles, with the fourth the longest at 24.1 miles. Starting at mile 44.5, the road kicks after several rolling miles, climbing over Flat Top Mountain and Sugar Run Mountain. The route then turns sharply downhill, sending riders through a long, rugged descent toward Dismal Creek Rd.

Strong off his victory at Life Time Grand Prix Chequamegon MTB Festival last weekend, New Zealander Wilson was the fastest in three sectors and claimed the victory with a time of 3:31:23.

His compatriot, Unbound Gravel 200 champion Cam Jones (Scott Sports USA-RCC), who currently lives in Blacksburg, Virginia and trains throughout the New River Valley, took second with a time of 3:36:45.

Olympian Martins Blums of Latvia rounded out the podium.

In the women’s race, Langley set the fastest time over four sectors to take the win with a time of 4:27:54. The American, who finished third at the 2026 USA Cycling Gravel National Championships earlier this month, went on to claim a top-10 finish the next day at Virginia's Blue Ridge GO Cross in Roanoke.

Kate Buss was second, with a time of 4:28:28, while Britt Mason rounded out the podium.

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It's hard to think of a better way to end a long and fruitful cycling career than a home World Championships.

That had in fact been Tiffany Cromwell's plan back in 2022 when the Road World Championships took place in Wollongong, but it was in fact another rainbow jersey race that was announced that very week which will provide the most fitting swansong.

That race is the UCI Gravel World Championships in Nannup, Australia which is set to unfold on October 10 and 11, and will be the Australian veteran's final outing as a professional cyclist.

"You can go through those moments where you think like 'This is it', and then when the time comes think 'Oh, actually, you know, being able to race your bike professionally is still pretty cool, and having all the races that we have is also pretty cool'," Cromwell told Cyclingnews about her delayed decision to retire. "Having gravel, that was definitely a renewed interest to me."

A renewed interest that took her through four more seasons, where she not only played a valuable support role while riding on the road for Canyon-SRAM, often as a road captain, but also swept up a long list of gravel victories. That included Australian titles, two Unbound 100 wins and a number of UCI Gravel World Series victories., including three at SEVEN in Nannup, which is where this year's World Championships will play out.

"I'm definitely happy I pushed on until now," said Cromwell. "I've done a lot between then and now."

It's also meant that while she may not have been given the opportunity to bow out at a home rainbow jersey race in 2022, with both her desire to continue and team selections standing in her way, the delay has delivered a chance to make that dream a reality in Nannup.

"Having the UCI World Championships of gravel in Australia, that's a good way to go out and finish," she said. "I'm just getting to the point where I'm getting tired, trying to keep the level that you need to be at for women's cycling; a level that is now super challenging if you don't dedicate everything to it.

"I've done so many years of that, I think you just feel it and it's nice that I can choose when. It's not that I didn't have options for a contract or that I had an injury that stopped me. It was just me."

After 12 seasons with the same team and 17 as a professional cyclist, Cromwell won't only be waving farewell at a home World Championships, but this time can do it as a serious contender, in a discipline and on a course where she has a strong winning history. On top of that she'll have the Canyon team for support, a new bike with what she expects – based on her previous experience on the course – to be the ideal set up and the strong form she is carrying heading toward the event is clear. Her last two UCI Gravel World Series races through September resulted in a second and first place.

"I was happy with how the sensations were," Cromwell told Cyclingnews when speaking after the Falling Leaves Lahti and in the days before her Tartu Rattamaraton win. "So you know I'll keep plugging along, a few more weeks of punishment, but I'm excited to just go in with a clear head for Gravel Worlds.

"Of course I'd love a fantastic result, it'd be a fairytale to win, but I'm also realistic. I can turn up, I can give my best, and see what that is. Marianne Vos is coming, and you know she's always in amazing form, no matter what time of year, and there's a lot of strong gravel riders turning up as well.

"So I just want to go there, race my bike, see what I can do, and just enjoy it. If I get something in the end, that's going to be a fantastic way to finish. If I don't, it's not the end of the world. I'm going with that mentality."

What happens when it is over?

Gravel may be a discipline that has proven reinvogorating and looks set to deliver the ideal farewell but, for Cromwell, it is certainly not the retirement plan.

"People are like, 'Oh, you'll still race gravel' but what they don't realise is that gravel is evolving so quickly, and the level is also increasing so quickly. And if you race, you want to be competitive, you want to be fighting for wins and fighting for podiums … so you then still have to train as hard, and for me that's one of the biggest things.

"I'm still happy to ride my bike, but it's the hurting yourself, doing the efforts – that side becomes harder – and if you stay to race gravel you still need to do the painful part."

That doesn't mean Cromwell is totally ruling out pinning on a number in the future – "never say never" – but with a different mentality.

"I can do some races for fun for sure," said Cromwell, who through the years has often been accompanied to events by her partner, F1 driver Valtteri Bottas.

"With Valtteri, like he's still loving cycling a lot and probably would want to do races, and I'm like, OK, I can be back to support but then you know maybe I throw in. Or maybe we've talked about in the future, just for fun, doing the Cape Epic together or something like that, those kind of challenges."

Cromwell, who already has a number of projects on the go, is however keeping the path flexible as she moves beyond her career as a professional cyclist, wanting time to enjoy a little freedom and travel. That doesn't mean she's likely to disappear from the industry.

"At the moment, it's still very open," said Cromwell when asked about what is next. "I don't have any kind of ambitions to day to day life with a cycling team, at least definitely not right now. But for sure, I still need to remember my biggest strength, or what I'm known for, is cycling. So it's not like I'm completely walking away because I think there's still a lot of opportunities."

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In a heated duel with Manon Bakker, Sydney McGill avoided her rival’s crash in the final corners to race to victory in Sunday’s C2 at Virginia’s Blue Ridge GO Cross, ending Bakker’s three-race winning streak in the second round of the US Cyclocross Series (USCX). In the men’s race, Tofik Beshir (CXD Trek Bikes) took another solo to claim back-to-back victories this weekend and his third in the series.

The pace was high in the women’s race after Nico Knoll (PRO.FWD) lead the pack the first lap after taking the holeshot. But splits happened soon after, with Knoll, Bakker and McGill pulling away, but by the third lap, Knoll had faded, leaving Bakker and McGill to battle for the win, staying together until the end of the final lap.

As the leaders hit the final climb, Bakker went all in, punching her way to the top, but slipped out in the final dry, dusty corner before the descent. McGill was briefly held up but quickly pushed through and powered onto the finishing straight to claim her first win of the series.

“She would just like sit up and try and get me to go on the front,” McGill said of her duel with Bakker. “I was like, ‘I've learned my lesson from you. I'm not gonna pull you around and let you attack me.’ So, we definitely were playing a bit of a game.”

“I knew the race came down to the entry to the UCI [downhill] line and she obviously knew that as well,” she added. “So that's where she went for it, but she just made a mistake in the corner that let me squeeze by."

“I don’t like losing,” said Bakker, who rolled in 6 seconds behind for second place. “Winning is the only thing.”

Meanwhile, behind, Raylyn Nuss (STF Racing), in her 2026 USCX debut, was picking her way through riders including Kaya Musgrave (Competitive Edge Racing), Lauren Zoerner (Corner Racing p/b Beyond Horizon Media) and Ada Watson (CXD Trek Bikes), and ultimately moved up to finish third, 45 seconds later.

In the men’s race, Ryan Drummond (Competitive Edge Racing) was off the front solo after two laps, with a chase group coalescing behind him with Beshir, Dylan Zakrajsek (Competitive Edge Racing), Tyler Clark (Caledon Hills Armada), Aidan Vollmuth (Donovan Racing) and the Midwest NXT duo of Calvin Conaway and Ethan Brown.

By the fourth lap, the reduced chase group, down to Beshir, Conaway, Brown, and Clark, had bridged the 30-second gap to catch Drummond.

In a repeat of Saturday’s C1 race, Beshir attacked with three laps to go and put in his fastest laps of the day to claim the win, leaving the rest to battle for the remaining podium spots.

“I just let them do their thing,” Beshir said of waiting to make his move. “There was no need to fight.”

“I saw they were tired because they kept breaking late,” he added. “Before the sand, I slowly moved up and then took that corner really good and just kept taking my momentum all the way through the sand.”

Crossing the line 22 seconds later, 2025 junior national champion Brown took second, and his first elite podium while Conaway rounded out the podium.

The USCX concludes with two days of racing at the Charm City Cross in Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, Maryland, October 3-4, 2026.

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Results

Rosa Klöser (Canyon SRAM MAAP) and Hugo Drechou powered to the win on Saturday at Pyrénées Catalanes Gravel Tour in Font-Romeu, France on Saturday, one of two final UCI Gravel World Series qualifying opportunities for the upcoming Gravel World Championships in Nannup, Australia.

The GWS final two events couldn’t have been more different. Sweden’s Gravel Grit’n Grind featured fast, flowing Nordic gravel roads, while the Pyrénées Catalanes Gravel Tour in the French Pyrenees put the emphasis firmly on climbing.

Klöser dominated the women’s race, crossing the line solo with a time of 3:21:48, finishing 14:37 ahead of her nearest rival, Nicole Frain (Factor Racing), in the elite women's category.

Teuntje Beekhuis (Uno-X Mobility) rounded out the podium, finishing in 3:43:25, over 21 minutes behind the winner. Chloe Schoenenberger (CAC Castelsarrasin) was fourth and Isabella Vianello (Lillehammer CK) finished fifth.

“Basically a home race only being a 1hr drive from Andorra - hence decided to go from full training load into the race and use a good opportunity to get some speed in the legs & was happy to see I felt good all day,” Klöser said in an Instagram post.

“Probably one of the most technical UCI gravel courses that you can find racing up and down some ski slopes and technical trails in Font-Romeu, full race at proper altitude racing up to 2200m.”

Klöser has been on the upswing, since recovering from illness, first dropping Marianne Vos on her way to victory at Sea Otter Europe in Girona a week ago, and now adding another win, her third in the GWS.

Centred around Font-Romeu, the 93km course challenged riders with high-altitude gravel roads, long climbs such as Col du Calvaire (1856m) and Pic de la Calma (2206m), and technical descents, with a total elevation gain of 2033 metres.

In the elite men’s race, Drechou made it one better than last year where he finished second to Romain Bardet. Racing on home roads, the French rider held off Thomas Champion to claim victory in 2:59:16, with Champion finishing 20 seconds behind. It was Drechou’s second win in the series, following his victory at Wish One Millau Grands Causses also in France in June.

Over two minutes later, Petr Vakoč (Factor Racing) claimed third in a three-way sprint ahead of Quentin Pacher and Aleksandr Grigorev (Efapel).

Last week, Drechou won his third French Marathon MTB, through the forests and open clearings of the Jura, at La Forestière.

Results

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The 2026 UCI Road World Championships in Montreal have come to an end after nine days of racing across 13 categories in the mixed team relay, individual time trials, and road races, showcasing the highest level of competition and crowning the new world champions who will proudly wear the rainbow jerseys next year.

It is the third time the marquee event has come to Canada after 1974, also held in Montreal, and 2003 in Hamilton, and it went off without a hitch, with the events largely taking place around the demanding Mont-Royal city circuits, but also venturing out to the Formula 1 venue at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, visiting Old Montreal, skirting along and crossing over the St. Lawrence River, with the elite road races starting in Brossard.

As the sport now turns its attention toward the 2027 UCI Cycling World Championships 'Super Worlds' that will take place in the Haute-Savoie region of France from August 24 to September 5, the Cyclingnews team reflects on the biggest takeaways from Montreal.

The junior women deserve more kilometres

The organisers of the Montreal event made a pointed effort to offer the same distance for the elite women's and elite men's time trials at these World Championships, both racing at 39.2km and won by Marlen Reusser of Switzerland and Remco Evenepoel of Belgium.

It was then baffling to find out that the junior women's time trial was a rather short 10.7km, nearly half the distance of the junior men, and the shortest distance for this category in the event's history at the Road World Championships.

A look back at previous distances offered to the junior women for the time trial revealed that the only other edition that offered a comparably short distance was the junior women's time trial in Quito, Ecuador, in 1994, with the longest at 19.8km in Innsbruck in 2018, and last year's race was held over 18.3km in Kigali.

While it's healthy for race organisers and teams to avoid putting too much pressure on junior athletes, many of whom juggle their budding athletic careers with academic responsibilities, the junior women's field can certainly compete over longer time trial distances.

We need – and want – more racing in North America

Only a handful of this generation of pros will remember the vibrant top-tier racing scene across North America and races like the Tour of California, Tour de Georgia, Tour of Missouri, Tour of Alberta, Colorado Classic, Tour of Utah, Grand Prix de Montreal, the Montreal World Cup and Liberty Classic, among many other events that took place in the late 1990s and the early- to mid-2000s - events that left a lasting impression.

Today, the WorldTour scene includes the Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec and Montréal, but riders who competed at the World Championships made their sentiments clear: they want to see more high-level racing for WorldTour teams.

Newly crowned World Champion Brandon McNulty, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, who secured the silver medal in the elite women's road race, and Elisa Longo Borghini, who took bronze in the elite women's road race and the world title in the mixed team relay, recalled their fond memories and racing experience in North America and would like to see more events take place there.

"I would love to race more over here," McNulty said. "As an American, I'm biased. Everyone loves racing at home; the Belgians love the Belgian races, the Italians love the Italian races, so I would love to. Most of the guys I know ask when California or Utah are coming back, so a lot of them like coming over here. The GPs in Montreal and Quebec are popular, and there's always a bit of a fight to get on the team, so I think there is a lot of interest. Obviously, there is a lot more to it than riders wanting the races. I don't know the logistics of promoting races, but I wish the pieces would come together to have a bit more of a scene here of WorldTour or Pro [Series] races."

Niewiadoma-Phinney said she would like to see a block of racing in North America where the teams could come over to an extended amount of time. "100%, I love coming over to North America. It's a great mental boost. You leave everything in Europe, you're in a different time zone, and you feel like you can refresh yourself. I would love more racing blocks in the US and, like here in Montreal, Philadelphia, or back to the Tour of California or Tour of Colorado."

Likewise, Longo Borghini said she welcomed the return of the Philadelphia Cycling Classic and would also like to see the return of the former Montreal World Cup, held alongside the current Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal.

"I would really like to see more races in North America. I've been riding in the past Philadelphia Classic, and I was actually happy to see that it came back this year because it was a nice race." Longo Borghini said. "And the cheering in North America is always cool, I have to say, because it's different from Europe. You guys are more excited and passionate and loud. It's actually thrilling to see so many people on the road and so much passion. And today I could feel the energy, and I would really like to see a Montreal [WorldTour] race for women."

Read more: GP Québec and Montréal organisers 'ready to have women's races' but there are still questions of funding

Yes, racing without radios makes Worlds so much better

Mathieu van der Poel said it right: racing without earpieces makes the races better. The Belgians tried to send messages in bottles, but the lack of readily available information during the road races really favoured smart racers and strong teams.

The Dutch women flawlessly executed their plan, and even winner Demi Vollering knew it was possible her long-range attack would be reeled in. She had a plan for it, and never needed the team car to tell her what to do.

It was the same in the men's race: the US team had the numbers at the front, and as long as you have a rider in the breakaway, there's nothing to worry about. They had a plan and it went exactly how sports director Mike Creed described to Cyclingnews.

Had there been radios, maybe the outcome would have been different. As it was, the final few laps of both elite races were some of the most chaotic, thrilling, unpredictable and exciting races on the calendar.

I agree that race radios are important for WorldTour races that are point-to-point for safety, but as a whole, road races do tend to become a bit formulaic. Their absence was a welcome change in Montreal.

Montreal roads are famously bad, even for Worlds

Because of the brutal winters in Montreal, snow removal and ice melting chemicals really take their toll on the surface of the roads. The courses in the city were full of potholes - most patched, but some not - especially in the time trials, and that really took a toll on riders.

After the mixed relay team time trial, ITT gold medalist Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) came through the mixed zone with her right arm heavily bandaged and explained she had suffered a deep bone bruise by going over the bumps with her arms in her TT arm rests. Fortunately it didn't seem to slow her down in the road race.

Filippo Ganna (Italy), second in the individual time trial and part of his country's gold medal effort in the mixed relay, commented on the poor conditions, too. "I think a World Championship should have the best tarmac. It's the same for everyone, but maybe new tarmac could be nice for everyone."

Hosting the world championships and the Grand Prix WorldTour race is a big ask for one city, but if the city or provincial officials could have laid down some fresh asphalt on the course, it would have provided some good will for the citizens who have had their lives disrupted by all of the road closures.

Super tough Worlds courses risk leaving out the top names in pro cycling

For the past decade, the Worlds road races have had climbs so tough that they've all but excluded sprinters from even starting. It hasn't been since Doha in 2016 that there was a completely flat course. Next year, there won't even be a much as a flat run-in to the circuits for any of the fields, and the elite men will have to race over a 2.5km climb a full 20 times.

Pro cycling in general has been moving toward tougher and tougher parcours and, as we've seen with the dominance of Tadej Pogačar, it's turned into a game of watts over wits. These hilly Worlds courses only add to that trend, and it's excluded so many talented riders. Thankfully, after 2027, that will change.

UCI President David Lappartient told Cyclingnews that it's not the edict for Worlds organisers to have hard courses, only that the road races be of a certain length, and take place on circuits to make it more fan-friendly.

"We want to have different types of circuits, 2028 will be in Abu Dhabi, [so it] will be flat, flat, flat. Copenhagen [2029] will be flat, but potentially windy, and Brussels [2030] is not flat, but it's not as difficult as we have here [in Montreal] so it's a little bit in the middle. So we try to have different types of circuits.

"It's good sometimes to have a very hard one because then the top GC riders or climbers can be World Champion. That could be the case for next year. It's also good when you have a pure sprinter as champion. When Mark Cavendish won in Copenhagen, I think it was great for cycling."

It's a shame not to have stand-out riders like Lorena Wiebes, Matthew Brennan, and Paul Magnier at Worlds, and fortunately in two years, they will get their shot.

The Dutch women showed full team commitment and were rewarded for it

When you have the world's number one rider on your squad, it would be foolish not to throw the team's collective weight behind them, and the women in orange did just that for Demi Vollering with a flawless team performance for the Netherlands in the elite women's road race.

From start to finish, the team patrolled the front of the peloton, never letting any dangerous move get too much time and keeping Vollering safe from the mass-crashes that took defending champion Magdeleine Vallieres (Canada) and Paula Blasi (Spain) out of the picture.

As the kilometres clicked down, the Dutch team slowly twisted the throttle, burning dangerous riders like two-time world champion Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) and Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner (USA) out the back.

Then, in what seemed to be quite a premature move, Puck Pieterse lifted the pace on the Camilien-Houde climb just past the start of three laps to go and brought back solo leader Maeva Squiban (France) and shattered the peloton so that Vollering could make her winning move.

Seeing quality riders like 2024 Tour de France winner Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) appear helpless as Vollering disappeared up the road only proved that the Dutch had done their job. Pieterse was able to foil the chase a little bit, but time trial world champion Marlen Reusser proved to be the wildcard, though she couldn't hold on in the climbs after helping to nail back Vollering.

In the end, Vollering still had to deal with her Polish rival, but managed to prevail and could thank her teammates in orange.

North American fans know how to turn out for a bike race

What did the athletes think about the environment and the crowds around Montréal across a full week of competitions? Were the senses overwhelmed by the dominant Québécois cuisine, sights and sounds to make the atmosphere feel European? Did the host city meet expectations?

The short answer is 'yes', from 'loud' cheering in French and English, and from one winner's recognition of his dog in the crowd.

"In a race like the World Champs, the behavior of the bunch is more or less the same, it's high-level racing. We face the same guys all season. But in terms of environment, yeah, Montreal feels different and special," summed up Victor Langoletti of Monaco, who made his eighth appearance at a Road World Championships across four continents.

"The people from Montreal, they are just amazing. I mean, the atmosphere is just crazy on every climb, all around the circuit."

Montreal Worlds marked the 15th appearance at a Road World Championships for Elisa Longo Borghini of Italy, now covering five continents.She earned her first Road World Championships gold medal last Wednesday in the Team Time Trial and added a third bronze medal in her career in a spell-binding elite women's road race.

"The cheering in North America is always cool, I have to say, because it's different from Europe. You guys are more excited and passionate and loud. Said from an Italian, sounds crazy, but you guys are very loud. And it's actually thrilling to see so many people on the road and so much passion."

The riders from Canada and the United States agreed it felt like a home race, and maybe no one was a better case study than dual citizen Ashlin Barry. The Toronto resident competes for Team USA, and he gave both sides of the border something to cheer about on Friday, winning the under-23 men's road race.

"It was just unreal being out there, seeing so many friends, seeing my family. I could hear my dog barking on the side of the course," Barry said.

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Torbjørn Røed (Trek Driftless) and Lauren De Crescenzo (The Feed-Argonaut-Castelli-Maxxis) continued personal hot streaks with victories at the Life Time Rad Dirt Fest on Saturday.

Røed was now two-for-two in his new Norwegian gravel champion's jersey, following his top spot at Lauf Gravel Worlds in Nebraska with this elite men's win in Trinidad, Colorado.

The decisive move for men was made two miles from the finish of the 110-mile race, Røed going six seconds ahead of USA's Keegan Swirbul in a two-up finish. New Zealand's Caleb Bottcher came in 10 minutes later to round out the podium.

"Altitude races are always tougher and Keegan Swirbul made it a battle. Happy I was able to time it perfectly and catch you at the last km," Røed said on Instagram.

The Rad Dirt Fest began in 2021, where De Crescenzo took her first victory, and she's never lost in her four other starts, only missing the event in 2022, now dubbed 'the queen' of the Rad Dirt Fest.

The five-time winner finished solo, 20 minutes ahead of Hannah Shell in second place. New Zealand's Charlotte Clark was just a couple of minutes.

Both De Crescenzo and Røed are part of the Grand Prix this year, but no points were scored for the series. The race was last included as part of the Life Time Grand Prix two years ago and will return to the series in 2027, part of seven races from April to October.

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Results

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Because the cycling world has a short memory, most of the talk over the next few days is going to be about the men's road race at the World Championships, and about how one of the most unpredictable races in years delivered a surprising but highly deserving winner in Brandon McNulty (USA).

The women's race got its own spotlight on Saturday, which is fantastic and the way it should be, but it did mean that attention quite quickly switched to the men's race, and the conversation moved on fast. Compound that with the fact that Sunday offered a surprise winner whilst Saturday's race was won by the favourite, and we run the risk of remembering this weekend as a thrilling men's race, and an as-predicted women's race.

But that would betray the fact that actually, both races over the weekend were gripping, unpredictable and highly competitive in their own way, and neither played out in a way that anyone could have scripted.

If you didn't watch the women's race, it would be easy to look at the results and think 'Oh, yeah, that's exactly what we all predicted would happen', and paint a picture in your mind of a straightforward race and a straightforward victory for Demi Vollering. She was the favourite, and she won. The podium was the exact same podium as the Tour de France Femmes. On paper, it all went as expected.

But of course, racing does not take place on paper, and the race itself will always tell you much, much more than the results sheet. In reality, this was a race that was not decided until the final few seconds, with all of the top four in the battle for victory until the final moments and – crucially – actually all trying to win, too.

There was a moment where it looked like Demi Vollering might Tadej Pogačar the race, that is to say, go long and win by brute force, riding everyone well off her wheel to take a solo victory. She capitalised on work from her teammate Puck Pieterse – which had dropped riders like Lotte Kopecky and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney – to attack solo with 38km to go, catch lone leader Maeva Squiban, and pull out a gap because no one followed her.

Except Vollering is not Pogačar, and so something happened that so rarely happens to her Slovenian peer; she was caught. It wasn't race over, no one was conceding their chances were over and racing for the medals. Niewiadoma-Phinney and Elisa Longo Borghini regrouped and went in pursuit of the Dutchwoman, joining her with 15km to go. Not long after the catch, Longo Borghini attacked on her own, but again, there was no marking each other out behind – Niewiadoma-Phinney and Vollering brought her back, and then dropped her.

In the finale, Niewiadoma-Phinney, who is so often derided for her tactical decisions, did everything right. She couldn't just sit on Vollering and do no work, because then Longo Borghini would almost certainly come back. But she also had to save enough energy to be able to try one of the only two things that would help her win: a late solo attack, or the sprint of her life at the line.

So that's what she did, she managed her efforts with Vollering, she put in one big attack on the penultimate climb, and then when that didn't work, she sat on to save herself for the sprint. She timed her sprint really well, too, going late on one of the steeper points, giving herself the best possible chance of winning. And no, it wasn't enough, because Vollering's acceleration was simply better, but Niewiadoma-Phinney gave herself every possible chance to win, racing for the victory and believing she could until the very last moment, which isn't something we can always say in cycling.

Elisa Longo Borghini, too, pushed all the way until the line, very nearly catching the leading pair on the finishing straight, and in contention to win herself until the last few metres.

The same is true for Marlen Reusser, who came from nowhere to appear round the final corner only a few seconds behind the leaders as they started the climb to the finish line, seeing rainbow within reach and going for it until the very end.

So yes, it was a race where the favourite won, but at no point did it feel like that was the only option, or a foregone conclusion, and Vollering's rivals made sure that nothing was over until it was over.

Racing for second?

Cycling, be it men's or women's, can often fall victim to what many have playfully dubbed 'group two syndrome'. It's a catch-all for those occasions when the chase group seems close enough to catch whoever is in the lead, but they look at each other and hesitate to chase, unwilling to bring each other to the front, and instead they all lose. It's frustrating to watch, and must be even more frustrating to be a part of.

It's what happened last year when Magdeleine Vallieres surprised the world with her win in Kigali. Not to take anything away from Vallieres' bold and strong ride – certainly no one 'let' her win – but behind her, the pre-race favourites just looked at each other, marked each other out, and ultimately all missed out on even a consolation medal.

It's not an unusual occurrence, and one that can really put a dampener on the race. On Sunday, whilst the top three were beaming on the podium with their medals, no one overly disappointed because they all seemed to finish the race with no regrets, fourth-placed Reusser made some striking comments.

"I had the feeling that I'm the only one racing for first place," she told Eurosport after finding herself in the chasing group behind the top three, having missed the decisive attack as she desperately needed to take a feed.

"I thought 'let's go for first' but I had the feeling that there were a lot of teammates around, everybody racing for second. It's short after the race, this is just what's in me now and I still need to watch it back, but my feeling is that we raced for second.

"If somebody like Demi is out, you cannot just pull a bit. You [either] pull, or the race is over. I think I showed full commitment to pull, and most of them didn't. If people are just sitting in and not really pulling then nothing is going, so then Demi just wins."

Except, I'm not sure that's really what happened. Reusser often has a really sharp, no-holds-barred take on racing, but this time, I don't think she got it quite right. It's hard to know exactly what was going on in the chasing group that Reusser found herself in, because we didn't see much of that in the finale, and equally it's hard for her to know what was happening up front.

Perhaps the group Reusser was in in the finale – which included Juliette Berthet, riding for France but Vollering's teammate usually – did not give it their all, but even if that's the case, they were riding for fourth at that point, not second. Maybe what she said was in the heat of the moment of frustration and disappointment, and once she has watched the race back she may think differently.

Reusser may have rued missing the key move, but up the road, no one was there settling or racing for silver – the three leaders were all there for the win, and Vollering certainly did not 'just win' as if she were unchallenged.

We absolutely do see days where riders race for second or third with a frustrating lack of ambition or risk-taking, but Saturday was not one of those days.

And in truth, the fact that every top rider was racing for the win until the very end is what made this race so special, so memorable, and far from a predestined Vollering win.

Because she's the Tour de France Femmes champion, and the winner of so many big Classics already this year, her win won't go down in the history books as a big surprise or underdog triumph like Brandon McNulty's will. But don't let that trick you into thinking Saturday wasn't also a very special race, with the best riders in the world all giving everything they had to go for the rainbow jersey.

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European gravel champion Femke Markus (SD Worx-Protime) and Magnus Bak Klaris (PAS Racing) earned the victories on Saturday at Gravel Grit'n Grind in Halmstad, Sweden, which was the final UCI Gravel World Series qualifying event for the Gravel World Championships in Nannup, Australia.

It was a solo victory for both, with Markus taking out the win with a time of 4:44:28, carving out a gap of nearly one minute to her nearest rival Caroline Bome in second while Elisa Serne (Foodmaker X GravelKing) was third more than two minutes back.

"Pretty cool to win in this jersey," said Markus in an Instagram post. "Always love to race in Halmstad, the gravel roads here are so beautiful! Tried to make a hard race today and happy I could finish it off."

Bak Klaris had carved out a 51 second margin to Sondre Mokke bt the time he crossed the line in 3:58:52 while Gustav Frederik Dahl was third, a further minute behind.

Lukas Malezsewski (GVA Gold Gravel), a six-time Belgian mountain bike champion, secured the overall Gravelking UCI Gravel World Series title. Oceania gravel champion Nicole Frain (Factor Racing-Factor) entered the weekend as the women's leader in the series, competing at Pyrénées Catalanes Gravel Tour in France.

Gravel Grit'n Grind returned for a fifth time in the Gravelking UCI Gravel World Series, one of the few events that has been part of the global series since the first year in 2022. Elite men and elite women faced a 154km route across the gravel roads and forest tracks of Halland.

Results

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Day 1 of the Virginia's Blue Ridge GO Cross in Roanoke, Virginia saw experienced Dutch rider Manon Bakker extend her perfect record on US soil, winning a third consecutive race in the USCX series. Rising talent Tofik Beshir (CXD Trek Bikes) took his first elite men's victory at the C1 level, which was his second consecutive win in the series following Rochester CX last Sunday.

"Today was about being smooth and being patient," Beshir said after his victory, which saw him extend his lead in the USCX standings.

"There were definitely times where I wanted to go. I remembered [Team Manager] Chris [Merriam] told me I needed to wait. But once everyone did their attacks and got a little tired, I hammered it."

Beshir attacked with three laps of the eight remaining to move into the solo lead of the race, and he never looked back. Tyler Clark finished second, 42 seconds down on Beshir, with Calvin Conway of Midwest NXT in third place.

"It felt great winning my first C1 [UCI race]," Beshir said. "I’ve been waiting for this for a long time."

In the women's race, the pre-race favourite Bakker confirmed her superiority with a convincing victory. The Dutch rider is a regular fixture on the European circuit but has found success in the USCX in past seasons and extended her perfect record.

On Saturday in western Virginia, she won with a 38-second advantage over Kaya Musgrave (Competitive Edge Racing) in second. Lauren Zoerner (Corner Racing p/b Beyond Horizons) rounded out the podium in third, finishing one minute down on Bakker.

Bakker pushed into the lead on the first tricky section of the course, the long sandpit. She remained in the lead for the entirety of the six-lap race after that.

Speaking after the race, Bakker said it was not an easy effort, as the hilly GO Cross course is the most challenging one for her on the USCX circuit.

"For me, it’s like a road race," she said. "There aren’t any very [many] technical parts, so it’s full gas the whole time. I was suffering."

Day 2 in Roanoke offers the C2 race taking on much of the same course but in the reverse direction.

Women's results

Men's results

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After her sixth-place finish in the women’s elite road race at the UCI Road World Championships, Puck Pieterse (Netherlands) flew through the mixed zone on her bike, shouting "I’ll come back" to the waiting journalists. The reason became apparent when the whole Dutch team, including national coach Laurens ten Dam, joined newly-crowned World Champion Demi Vollering on the podium to celebrate the victory after a united team performance.

"It was super cool; everybody was happy for each other. We put quite some pressure on ourselves; we had an ambitious plan, but there was also a lot of pressure from the media," said Pieterse on her second pass of the mixed zone, once the podium celebrations were over.

"The Netherlands are really quite dominant in women’s cycling, but then, coming to the World Championships, everything has to come together. Demi has to have a very good day, all the others also need to have a good day to perform their tasks. But I think we showed a lot of confidence throughout the race, and that helped Demi as well,"

In previous years, the Dutch national selection had had several leaders who often could not agree on who to support during the race, sometimes to their own detriment. But on Saturday, the orange-clad team rode as one to support Vollering’s goal of her first-ever rainbow jersey – a decision made easier by Vollering’s domination throughout the season.

"Everybody had the same goal. I think that was the case in the past too, but then there were several riders with big wins throughout the season," said Pieterse. "Now it was clear, when one rider wins the Tour, Flanders, Liège, Flèche Wallonne, well, that’s your leader."

Amber Kraak, Femke de Vries, Riejanne Markus, Lieke Nooijen, and Karlijn Swinkels controlled the race for a long time, with three Dutch riders at the front of the peloton for most of the race until a first tentative move was made by France’s Maëva Squiban in the last 55km.

"At one point, it became a bit harder, about a lap before [Vollering’s attack]. We didn’t have the numbers and Squiban went away," added Pietersen. "But we stuck to our plan, we had the idea that we would make our move with three laps to go, and that’s what we did."

Her own job was arguably the most important one, pulling hard up the Voie Camillien-Houde, the main climb of the 13.3km Montreal circuit, to set up Vollering’s attack with 38km to go.

"That pull had to be as long as possible. So I went all-out there. When Demi attacked, I looked back, and there was really nobody left in the wheel, so I thought, ‘okay, it was hard enough’," said the 24-year-old.

"Then I dropped back to the group with Kasia. I didn’t have to do much more, but I also was really exhausted. At one point, I saw we were getting closer and tried to disrupt the chase a bit."

After that, with her leader up the road, Pieterse had a free pass in the groups behind, but the lead-out had taken so much out of her that she couldn’t follow the moves in the final.

It was here that her leader was caught by Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland) and Elisa Longo Borhgini (Italy), forced to chase down the latter after she attacked, and then hold onto the former when she tried to drop her on the final kicker. In the end, a sprint between the Dutch rider and the Pole saw Volelring still emerge victorious, even if it wasn't from plan A.

"After my lead-out, I was still in a good position to get a result myself. If I’d had a bit more left, maybe I could have stayed with the others longer, maybe helped Demi a bit or even sprint for a podium myself," said Pieterse

"I didn’t completely sacrifice my own chances, but you know that if you do the lead-out, certainly on the flatter part of the climb, it costs a lot of energy. I think that the women with the most endurance stood on the podium today, and for me it was still a bit too hard."

By the time she reached the finish, Pieterse wasn't completely exhausted, though, still able to execute a few wheelies to entertain the Montreal crowds on the finishing straight, before joining up with an emotional, elated Vollering, and celebrating huge success for the Dutch.

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After the horror crash which rocked the women's elite race at the UCI Road World Championships, positive medical updates have been provided on those worst affected, including Caroline Andersson (Sweden) and Lauretta Hanson (Australia).

With 95km to go, more than 15 riders came down towards the middle of the peloton on one of the fastest parts of the 13.3km Mount Royal circuit in Montréal.

Andersson and Hanson were unable to get back to their feet, and were the first two to be transported straight to hospital. The Swedish Federation provided an update to their website in the evening to confirm that Andersson's condition was thankfully improving and that she was conscious, after the incident left teammate Julia Borgström visibly distressed.

"She has a broken collarbone. It's an open fracture, so she needs surgery later. Otherwise, it seems to have stopped at a small haemorrhage in the hip, but the doctors are keeping an eye on it," said Alexander Wetterhall, a member of the Swedish team management.

"She is conscious, talking and can communicate, but is tired from painkillers. Otherwise, everything seems okay under the circumstances. The parents are here now, which is great. She is also getting help from her team doctor, whom she has known for some time. So at least there is a good overview of the situation here at the hospital."

Hanson left the race in an ambulance after being put into a neck brace, but confirmed to her own Instagram story that, while injured, she had escaped without a more serious injury.

"Thank you to everyone that checked in after my crash today. I'm OK. Banged up and a few broken ribs, but thankful it wasn't worse," read her story. "Grateful for the best support here in Canada."

The crash had major implications for the tactics of the race, which was eventually won by Demi Vollering (Netherlands), with defending champion Magdeleine Vallieres (Canada) coming down hard on her right side and being forced to abandon after chasing for a couple of laps with visible road rash on her hip and blood on her hand.

Smiling as she crossed the line and waving to her home support, she was evaluated by the team's and the organisation's doctors at the hospital. Vallieres later confirmed on her social media that she was without fractures in the evening.

"A big thank you to everyone who came out today! Just a quick message to let you know that I’m fine and nothing broken," said the 2025 champion.

"Sorry if I don't reply to your lovely messages; due to the risk of concussion, I'm taking a short break from social media."

Vuelta Femenina champion Paula Blasi (Spain) also had to abandon as a result of the crash, detailing how "When the race entered the circuit, it was crazy. People were taking too many risks," after speaking at the finish.

But she, too, posted an image to her Instagram with a bruise and cut near her eye to confirm she wasn't badly injured in the high-speed incident. The young superstar will look for more success at the European Championships in Slovenia next weekend.

"This was far from the race we were hoping for, but sadly crashes are also part of the game. I am grateful to have the support of the team, and even though I was not feeling 100%, they committed to the plan. Thanks, girls," said Blasi.

"Now is time to fly back home, get a couple of tests in my ribs to make sure everything is fine and heal quick to face the last races of the season, the European Championships. Thanks for all the support and to all of you who asked about my health; no worries, I will be back."

Several other riders were left bloodied and bruised by the crash, and forced into a chase to try to get back into the race. This included USA leader Kate Courtney, Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mauritius), Lauren Dickson (Great Britain), and Sarah Gigante (Australia).

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Demi Vollering has been sanctioned by the UCI after winning the rainbow jersey at the Road World Championships, with "Using a non-compliant position or point of support on the bicycle" landing her a 1000 CHF fine, a 25-point deduction in UCI rankings, and a yellow card.

She wasn't the only rider to be highlighted in the post-race decisions of the commissaires' panel, with Austria and Visma-Lease a Bike rider Katharina Sadnik receiving the same punishment for the same breach of the regulations.

The article in question is 2.12.007.9 of the UCI regulations, which focuses on rider positions, and before the World Championships this season, 34 riders had already been hit with yellow cards and fines for the same offence.

No specific moment in the race, or clarification over what the illegal position was, is detailed in the race communique. But it won't matter to Vollering too much, as the decision had no change on the end result of the 180km race, with Vollering emerging victorious from a thriller ahead of Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland).

The Dutch rider was the heavy favourite for Saturday's race, and after a stellar lead-out from the Netherlands team and a final surge from Puck Pieterse, it looked as though Vollering would go solo to her first world title from 38km out.

But a chase group of stars behind her didn't give up, with huge pulls from Marlen Reusser (Switzerland), then a move from Niewiadoma and Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy), seeing Vollering get caught with 15km to go.

Still able to muster up the strength, she pulled back in an opportunistic move made by Longo Borghini ahead of the final 13.3km lap, then dropped her on the key Camillien Houde climb. With just Niewiadoma-Phinney left to contend with, Vollering held onto the Polish rider's one big attack before settling in for the sprint.

Even after doing the lion's share of the work to ensure they weren't caught back by the Italian or Swiss rider, Vollering still had the strength to outsprint her long-term rival, who cramped as the pair came to the line after 180km of all-out racing.

An emotional Vollering celebrated adding the world title to her already illustrious and growing palmarès, describing it as "the best victory of my career" in the aftermath. Just this season, she had already won the Tour de France Femmes, Giro d'Italia Women, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, La Flèche Wallonne, Tour of Flanders, and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

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Saturday's elite women's road race at the UCI Road World Championships was hit with a prize-fight battle between top contenders Demi Vollering (Netherlands) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland). Then throw in an epic charge by Italy's Elisa Longo Borghini, and you had three of the world's best racers who had never won a rainbow jersey in the road race. Hard to believe.

Vollering came away the spoils of victory - jersey, gold medal, national anthem played at the award ceremony. Her Polish rival earned silver, and Longo Borghini bronze. It was a gut-punch of sorts for Niewiadoma-Phinney, who launched a final attack on the uphill sprint finish, only to have her momentum, and dream, shut down with a leg cramp.

"As of right now, I definitely feel like that was one of the hardest races we've done. There were also a lot of different scenarios happening, and ups and downs, so it was beautiful racing," Niewiadoma-Phinney said at the post-race interview.

"It's not, like, 'oh yay, silver'. It's odd, you know. But I knew that I gave my best. I was cramping in the last 50 metres. I was not even able to finish my sprint.

"On the other hand, you accept the fact that somebody was faster, stronger than you, and you gave your absolute best. There are no what-ifs, and then it's kind of easier to move on."

The Polish rider has found herself in similar podium situations, having finished second to Vollering at the Tour de France Femmes a month ago, and last year second at European Championships in the road race. In the spring, she went second to Vollering at Omloop Nieuwsblad and third at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

"The fact that she beat me today doesn't mean that I'm OK; that's fine. It just means that I wanna come home and work harder to beat her next time. So there is definitely a beauty of having a competitor that's so strong because that person motivates you and makes you wanna be stronger and faster."

Paula Blasi won this year's Amstel Gold Race in April, but behind her, Niewiadoma-Phinney was better than Vollering in the head-to-head sprint for second place. At the post-race press conference, she said the memory of that battle came to mind in Saturday's race, "actually, I also tried to remember that".

"I was reminding myself in the last four or five weeks when preparing for today, that I did beat Demi, and I won the World Champion jersey [in gravel], so why not to do it again? It's a motivator for me because sometimes on such a high level, it's less about physical abilities, but mental abilities. We're all very strong, and then it's a mind game that you have in the last kilometres."

The duo put on a big GC show at the Tour de France Femmes, each having won the Grand Tour before, but only one coming away in 2026 as a two-time champion. Niewiadoma-Phinney landed the first punch, securing the overall lead with first place atop Mont Ventoux. Vollering countered the next day to win the stage and took the yellow jersey, for good.

"I feel like with the Tour on the second last stage, when I lost the yellow jersey, maybe that's where I cracked slightly mentally. Once you're on the wave of feeling good and getting what you want, your confidence is very high. But confidence, it's such a fleeting moment," Niewiadoma-Phinney said.

"So today I took it as a new opportunity for the result. I knew I was really strong. I felt good, and I just wanted to make sure that I don't finish the race feeling I didn't do my best. So I definitely crossed the finish line knowing that all I had was given on the road."

Team Poland also had to show their strength with just five riders on the start versus seven Dutch riders. Poland was down to just three riders - Niewiadoma-Phinney, Dominica Wlodarczyk, and Marta Lach - after Marta Jaskulska and Kaja Rysz completed their jobs. The Dutch contingency looked like a locomotive at the front of the peloton for most of the day.

"We definitely had one goal, to win the race. Marta [Jaskulska] and Kaja, they were responsible for the first part of the race, keeping us safe in the front. And Dominica and I, we were the leaders of the team. So basically, it was up to us to see how everything evolves."

The race evolved quickly once Vollering made a solo attack with 38km to go, and 18km later Niewiadoma-Phinney attacked and carried a small group to close down the dangerous move. Like any good drama, it came down to the pair of rivals in another dramatic conclusion.

"I'm also super happy that the race was perceived as one of the most exciting races because that promotes women's cycling, and that's such a nice perspective for all the fans watching."

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About this time last September, Kate Courtney made history as the first US woman to win the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships, which was the second rainbow jersey in her career. But this year it was all about the road.

She entered her first USPro Road Nationals event in the summer, won that, and then signed a pro road contract with FDJ United-Suez. Momentum was on her side for a debut at the UCI Road World Championships. Instead of a medal of any colour, she came away with unexpected bruises in black and blue, but a desire to prove her fitness.

"The race was not great, obviously, not the perfect day today," she said with a smile and a laugh to media, including Cyclingnews, in the mix zone afterwards, one shoulder and one hip exposed from a ripped Team USA kit.

"I was in the perfectly wrong place, just close enough to see it [the start of the crash], not far enough back to react. So we will just lick our wounds and come back for more."

After an opening section of 72.8km on the east side of Montréal, the first of eight laps of the Mount Royal circuit began with USA's Natalie Quinn and Norway's Marte Berg Edseth setting the pace in a two-rider breakaway. It was on the next lap, with 95km to go, that a major crash reset plans for many teams, including Team USA.

The crash was sparked by several riders going down on the right side of the road, including defending champion Magdeleine Vallieres (Canada), who remounted slowly. However, Caroline Andersson (Sweden) and Lauretta Hanson (Australia) were not able to continue from there, needing medical attention.

Courtney recalled it was just a "fast" chain reaction in the peloton of riders going down across the wide avenue, creating a split.

"We were going fast. It was one of the fastest parts of the course. It was the descent where the course doubles back, and that's quite a big fight for positioning there.

"It's the classic [scenario] - someone was moving up, two riders come together, and if you're too close to that, you don't have time to react. So there was no time, a couple of riders in front of me.

"I'm obviously a little banged up, but it was quite a serious crash, and there were some girls laying on the ground when I walked away, and that was really honestly the worst part. So hoping that everyone's OK."

The USPro road champion made it around the circuit twice more, then pulled out.

"I was feeling great. We were well positioned, and we were working really well as a team, which was exciting. Alexis [Magner] did such an awesome job positioning me on the flats, and then Lauren Stevens was pulling me up there in the climb, and we were all in a really good position. We had Natalie [Quinn] in the breakaway, Grace [Arlandson] was with me as well," Courtney extolled about her teammates.

"I worked really hard for this race. I felt really strong coming into it, and I know that at some point, hopefully the next couple years, I'll get to show that fitness in a bike race."

The disruption at the halfway point in the 180.1km race proved to be an immediate end to the plans for Team USA, with Courtney tabbed as team leader in her debut at these championships.

The top US finishers were Kristen Faulkner in 21st position, in a small group 8:34 off the winning pace of Demi Vollering (Netherlands), and Lauren Stephens in 40th, 15:31 back. Courtney's effort went down as a DNF, alongside another debutant for the team, Grace Arlandson, the bronze medallist at the USPro Road Championships.

Arlandson had a flat just before the crash and helped shepherd Courtney on the final kilometres.

"We had the super experienced girls on the team there to position her, and I think that was going really well. It's kind of cool to be a part of learning alongside Kate," Arlandson told Cyclingnews.

"She's kind of learning things too. Kate's already just stepped right up to the level," she added, showing off a yellow hair band that was on her wrist.

"Kate made us these hair ties. So I think all of us are wearing them. Mine kept falling out of my hair. But yes, also ideally the colour of a medal [we wanted]."

Courtney will finish the road year with FDJ United-Suez at two races in Italy in October, the Giro dell'Emilia and Tre Valli Varesine.

"I'll be headed back to Italy to do a couple more races with the team, and then end the season. So, some good ones coming up, and mostly just a head start on getting ready and seeing what we need to do for next year. Mostly not crash, I think would help," she added with another signature smile.

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Demi Vollering went into the 2026 UCI Road World Championships elite women's road race as the overwhelming favourite, but pulling off her rainbow jersey-winning race took more than just individual strength - it took the entire weight of the Dutch squad fully behind her. It's something that the 29-year-old made sure to repeatedly point out in her post-race press conference.

"It's incredible to see it finally work out after the race we have shown today," Vollering said. "Because in the past I have said it more often: if we want to win a race with me, then we need to do it like this way, to set a team in front of me and really sacrifice every team member to also make the race very hard and to stay in control.

"That's what we did today, and then directly we have like this beautiful jersey in our pocket. So it really took all the effort from every single team member to get to this point, and I'm very proud of all the girls I had around me today, but also of our coach, Laurens ten Dam, who made this team together and also to make sure that everybody was 100% dedicated for this plan."

It was clear from the first kilometre that the Netherlands had this intention, as they amassed at the front and stayed there as a non-threatening breakaway went up the road. When the race finally reached the 13.3km circuits in downtown Montreal, they slowly ramped up the pace to reel in the attack. Femke de Vries, Lieke Nooijen, Riejanne Markus, Karlijn Swinkels and Amber Kraak took turns at the front until Vollering was ready to make her move.

On the main climb of the circuit, the Camilien-Houde, at the beginning of the third-to-last lap, Puck Pieterse went to the front and set such a blistering pace that there were only eight riders left at the front. It was time for Vollering to make her move. This was 'plan A'.

"I think the key moment was having a team who made it so hard lap after lap, and then Puck, who did an amazing lead-out for me to set up an attack, Vollering said.

"I think this was one of the key moments where we really killed all the others almost, and then I was out alone. It was a very crazy race from this moment, because the gap never was amazingly big, so it was always like 20, 15 seconds. I really tried to stay in the moment and to focus on my own effort."

Although a concerted chase from Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy), Kasia Niewiadoma Phinney (Poland) and, on the flatter sections, Marlen Reusser (Switzerland), reeled her in before the final lap with 15.6km to go, she kept believing.

"The moment they came back, I was like, 'OK, now I need to switch to Plan B as soon as possible,' but at least I have to try to go all the way to the finish line without any regrets. It really helped also to have a team who worked so hard the whole day for you. Then it's a bit easier to finish it off because you have all the weight on your shoulders to finish it off as well, so I'm so incredibly proud to have delivered here and wear this beautiful jersey."

It is no small task to take a group of riders from all different trade teams, any number of whom might be able to win the race, and get them to rally behind a single rider. In years past, the Netherlands have won through raw power with Anna van der Breggen, Annemiek van Vleuten, and Marianne Vos. Vollering knew it would take a group effort for her to win, and finally had the confidence to get the backing to do so.

"It takes guts to ask this from a team, you know? Like: 'OK, we go to a race, I take a lot of strong Dutch girls with me, they all sacrifice their own chances for me, and then I will finish it off for you'. But you don't know if you can finish it off!

"It's very hard to say 'OK girls, you need to work very hard for me, and then I will take the jersey for you, but there's also a chance I cannot do it'. So yeah, that's I think a very hard moment, but by saying that now - and also now I dare to say this - I think that changed the results also for me. Then I can stay calm in the race and know that if it will not work out, that the world will not end. Because in the past maybe it would feel like this as well, but now I also know that it's not like this."

As a two-time winner of the Tour de France, with titles in the Giro d'Italia, Vuelta a España, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold Race - the list goes on and on - to finally win a rainbow jersey is a massive accomplishment that has been years in the making.

"It's the biggest victory of my career, also because it's such a hard race to win," Vollering said of the World Championships. "Like I said before, you do it with teammates who normally are your competitors, so it's hard to make a team work like they worked today.

"So for that, I'm forever thankful for them, for all their hard work. And also very proud that we came to this point - how we were already the last few days with each other, we had such a good time, and also they give me the confidence and the belief, and that's very important."

There was only one moment that Vollering thought the plan could fall apart, and that was when Longo Borghini launched a surprise attack at the start of the final lap, and gained ten seconds.

"I think indeed in this moment I was a bit like, 'Shit, if she stays out over the top of this climb, then we have a problem'. But then I knew I just had to pace this climb as hard as I could and catch her back before the top. So that's what I did. Of course, this was an exciting moment - you don't know what you can still do and what the others can still do. So yeah, it was a nervous moment."

After the climb, Vollering was away with her long-time rival Niewiadoma-Phinney, and the two sprinted side-by-side until 50 metres to go when the Polish rider succumbed to cramps. The pair have been head-to-head countless times, but Vollering believed until the last metre.

"You have to believe with your whole heart that it's possible. There were so many years that I also tried so hard and it didn't work out, and you're devastated as well. But this year it finally worked out for me," Vollering said.

"I think this is one of the most beautiful races we have ever shown. It was a very interesting and exciting race to the finish line, also for Elisa [Longo Borghini] coming back so close again. So you couldn't switch off at any moment, and you needed to stay super focused every single second to make sure nothing crazy would happen."

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France may not have gotten a medal in the elite women's road race at the UCI Road World Championships held in Montreal on Saturday, but Juliette Berthet's fifth-place and the team finishing with three riders in the top-10 marked the building blocks for a promising future, especially ahead of the 'Super Worlds' held in the Haute-Savoie region next summer.

In an interview with Cyclingnews from the mixed zone minutes after crossing the finish line in what has been regarded as one of the most challenging races for the rainbow jersey in recent memory, Berthet said she was proud of her team and had no regrets.

"I didn't make it, but I'm proud of myself. It was a super hard race. I felt good, but I have no regrets because the four in front of me were just a bit stronger today," Berthet said.

Berthet was part of a selection that included eventual winner and new World Champion Demi Vollering (Netherlands), silver medallist Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland), and bronze medallist Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy), along with Puck Pieterse (Netherlands), Dominika Włodarczyk (Poland), and time trial World Champion Marlen Reusser (Switzerland).

Also in the move were her France teammates Maeva Squiban and Célia Gery. The move formed after Squiban attacked 52km out on the circuit's gruelling ascent, Camillien-Houde forcing the race for the win to ignite, and Vollering giving chase.

"We told Maeva before the race that if she felt like she could go, then she could go, and that is what she did. She picked a perfect moment because when the attacks went there were still three [from France] over the top of the climb," Berthet said.

Vollering was the next to surge with 38km to go and gained a lead that never got more than 23 seconds, and eight riders chasing: Longo Borghini, Niewiadoma, Squiban, Célia Gery, Berthet, Włodarczyk, Reusser and Pieterse sitting on.

Vollering's solo move was ended when Niewiadoma-Phinney and Longo Borghini chased her down to make a lead trio leading into the last lap, with Berthet a whisker off the back, and Reusser chasing. A fitting moment for Berthet and the French team was when Geneviève Gambillon, who won the elite women's road race title in Montreal in 1974, rang the bell to signal the last lap.

"On the last lap, when I crossed the finish line, I was still playing for the title, so that is quite an improvement from my last World Championships, and the other one-day races that I've done this year. I was happy to still be in the lead [group] and I just gave it everything, but my legs were so empty," Berthet said.

"I kept on fighting, especially when I was with Marlen, because you never know; maybe if we came back, and if they were not working with each other in front, maybe it was still possible to come back and try to do an attack, but they were really fast in front so it was not possible."

In the end, Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney sprinted for the rainbow jersey, with Longo Borghini taking third, Reusser fourth and Berthet fifth, her best finish in the elite women's road race at Worlds. Gery finished seventh and Squiban ninth.

"It was an amazing race [for France], to be honest. We were always together. It was nice, and it helps that we fight for the same team; it was super good," Berthet said.

"I think that three in the top 10 is something we have never done in the last eight or nine years. We can be proud, and we have to think about it for the future - that we are a strong team and we will make the podium one day."

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The Montreal World Championships had begun perfectly for Marlen Reusser (Switzerland), who defended her ITT title in style, but the rest of the week felt like a repeat of Kigali 2025 for the Swiss rouleur who 'only' took bronze in the TTT Mixed Relay and then missed the crucial attack in the road race. She was on the back foot for the rest of the race, chasing in vain to finish just off the podium.

"Last year was the same: I could win the ITT, super cool, then we had a mechanical in the Mixed, just like this year when we came third. I was in fantastic shape [for the road race] last year, made a big mistake and I came ninth," said Reusser in the mixed zone while newly-crowned World Champion Demi Vollering (Netherlands) and medallists Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) were celebrating on the podium.

"This year again, I make a mistake … I’m 35 now, I’m not going to do it ten times more, so I’m quite disappointed, to be honest."

The mistake Reusser described took place when Vollering attacked solo for the first time with 38km to go. The Swiss rider had run out of food and gone to the team car to stock up when the top favourite made her move.

"In the crucial moment, I was out of position; I was busy with my feeding. Incredibly stupid; that was my big mistake of the day. And my fourth place is what I got for racing for first place. I had the feeling I was the only one that really went for the first place," said Reusser.

"But I thought, let’s go for first, and there were a lot of people racing for second. It’s right after the race; it’s just what’s in me now. I need to watch it back. But my feeling is, like, we raced for second."

Reusser was disappointed with the lack of cooperation in the chase group behind Vollering. In a group of eight riders that also included Juliette Berthet, Célia Gery, Maëva Squiban (all France), Niewiadoma-Phinney, Włodarczyk (both Poland), Puck Pieterse (Netherlands), and Longo Borghini, so-called ‘group 2 syndrome’ went into full effect, and Reusser was doing the vast majority of the chase work.

"Puck was the only one who didn’t have to pull, and she tried to disrupt, which is fine, I think. But everybody else had a big reason to pull," she said,.

"Yes, it was my choice, my mistake, but I know that if I’m just sitting on, Demi will have won. If you give her too much of a gap, the race is over. So I started pulling, I showed full commitment, and the others benefited from that. I pulled and pulled, everybody attacked, and it was impossible to follow all the attacks."

On the final two laps, after Vollering, Niewiadoma-Phinney, and Longo Borghini had gone up ahead, Reusser kept pushing, hoping in vain that the riders ahead of her would stop going all-out.

"I knew it’s not so much about my effort, more about what happens in front. I knew it was really worth it to just keep riding," she added.

"The situation would have been much better if they had still been with three and played more. I knew that if they looked at each other, slowing each other down, then I can come back. I kind of lost it [the race] before, but it wasn’t over, it just depended on how it went in the front. But it was stupid to end up in this situation at all."

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She tried, and tried again, but Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) had to settle for the bronze medal in the elite women's road race at the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal. The result equalled her previous bests in Zurich in 2024, Imola in 2020 and Valkenburg in 2012, but for the 34-year-old, her attacking display was a way of forcing her rivals to bury themselves and really earn their victory.

Part of a select chasing group trying to reel in eventual winner Demi Vollering (Netherlands), Longo Borghini was the first to attack once the Dutch star was caught with 15.3km to go. She launched a searing attack at the start of the last 13.3km lap and opened up more than ten seconds before the chasers managed to reel her in before the top of the main Voie Camillien-Houde climb.

The effort cost her, and after being caught, she lost touch with Vollering and silver medalist Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland), spending the better part of 11 kilometres chasing. She came within just a few seconds on the finishing straight, but couldn't make contact.

It was another example of what she called "Italian grit" on display.

When asked if her late attack was a risk, Longo Borghini was frank. "If you don't risk, you don't win the race, so you have to [take a] risk; otherwise, you never know. If you never try, you lose anyway. So it's better to try than to be third like a loser. I don't like to stay passive. I like to hurt the others and to make them suffer. They have to deserve the win.

"I rode to win this race, and I left every single drop of energy that I had on this road," Longo Borghini said. "I really wanted the rainbow jersey, but I'm also satisfied because I really gave everything."

Not only was Longo Borghini in pursuit of the leaders, but she also was trying to fend off elite time trial world champion Marlen Reusser (Switzerland), who was coming up quickly from behind in the final kilometre.

"I wanted to ride myself empty and catch their wheels, but it was impossible," Longo Borghini said. "It was just like 100 meters too much for me, and I also knew that Marlen was coming back, so I was like, 'Defend yourself as much as you can, Elisa, because you earned this third place. You didn't lose it. You really won it'."

Always a rider to race with emotion, Longo Borghini was motivated by a special purpose in her efforts.

"I think as an athlete, you have the duty to give emotion to people and to inspire people," she said. "Today, I really wanted to show the grit of the Italians is there, and that women's cycling is nice to watch and to follow."

Having raced the individual time trial and mixed relay team time trial, Longo Borghini was suffering from tendinitis in her right knee, and that led to cramps in her other leg as she had been compensating for the pain. As she was being caught on the climb, she was telling herself, "It's better you slow down a little bit, otherwise next year, you're still here and they have to come and grab you on the road," she joked.

"Then Demi and Kasia passed me, and I couldn't really get on their wheel. And from there on, it was a chase. I did believe I could come back at some point, but five seconds were quite a lot, to be honest. And then I had also to defend my position because Marlen was coming back quite strongly, but [it is] definitely a bronze medal that has a lot of value for me.

"I think [Demi] was convinced to go solo to the final, and she was a bit surprised when we came back. I'd say that today Kasia and I were really strong, and we were determined to come back to her, so we did. Demi was the strongest today, and she won the race, so I have a lot of respect for what she did. She showed that she's the deserved world champion, and she will wear the rainbow jersey with pride."

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Demi Vollering (Netherlands) outsprinted Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney to win the elite women's road race at the UCI World Championships, emerging victorious after a failed solo attack and a gripping final lap duel with the Polish rider.

Vollering went away on her own 38km to go, and looked set to take victory from a long-range move, but the unrelenting efforts of Niewiadoma-Phinney and third-place Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) from a chase group saw her reeled back in before the final 15km.

The Italian tried to go solo, but Vollering showed off her mental resilience as she got back on the front, worked tirelessly to reel back Longo Borghini, then dropped her on the final ascent of the Camillien-Houde to make it a lead duo.

Niewiadoma-Phinney made Vollering do the lion's share of the work on the final lap, before trying to drop her on one of the final kickers, putting the Dutch rider into difficulty, but failing to distance her before the final run to the line.

Longo Borghini and Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) were chasing hard behind, but the victory was going to go to one of the top two riders from the Tour de France Femmes. Niewiadoma-Phinney went first with 200 metres to go, but Vollering just kept sprinting, having led things out, with the Polish rider running out of steam first before the line and seeing the victory go to her big rival.

"I think I can still not believe it. I worked so hard towards this goal, and it takes guts to truly believe in it with your whole heart, and together a team around you with such strong girls, and they all sacrifice for you," said an emotional Vollering after the finish.

"I mean, they maybe also have a chance, and they all go for it – only for you, it's a lot to ask from them. But I'm so proud of everybody from the team. They did the whole race. We took it in hand, and they rode the whole race on the front, then Puck [Pieterse] did an amazing lead-out, and I could just not... not finish the job, you know?

"Oh yeah, there were so many moments I thought I went too early. I mean, it stayed so close the whole time, and I didn't dare to turn around and look back because I was like, I feel like they're almost in my wheel already. And then it was 20 seconds, 22, 15, and at one point they came back, and I was like, oh shit! But it's still not over. I have to believe in it, like from my little toe. I just dared and then tried again, and never gave up till the finish line.

"I was not planning to give it away anymore from that moment. I was like, no, now it's mine," she said, recalling the final sprint. "I think it was an amazing race to watch. I'm very proud to be part of that, and I cannot wait to watch it back."

Vollering adds this maiden world title to an already incredible season, in which she has won the Tour de France Femmes, Giro d'Italia Women, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, La Flèche Wallonne, the Tour of Flanders, and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

How it unfolded

Not long after the riders rolled out of Brossard with the tension building for the elite women's road race, the first attacks were launched out of the peloton by Rotem Gafinovitz (Israel) and Argiro Milaki (Greece), but it wasn't until 20km of the 180-kilometre route had been completed that the early breakaway formed.

With the two initial attackers brought back and the Dutch team showing they were going to control things, Gergana Stoyanova (Bulgaria), Beatriz Roxo (Portugal), Marte Berg Edseth (Norway), and Natalie Quinn (USA) got up the road and were allowed to build a lead.

Racing settled down with the Netherlands pacing behind and the break kicking on towards Montreal and the eight laps of the Mount Royal circuit and Voie Camilien-Houde climb, where the rainbow jersey winner would be decided.

Quinn and Edseth emerged as the strongest from the break, with their two other companions getting dropped, and they entered the first circuit with a three-minute lead over the chasing peloton. It was calm in the bunch, but some of the corners had caused crashes, with Paula Blasi (Spain) and Anna Henderson (Great Britain) coming down, but quickly remounting their bikes.

Racing began to heat up into the final 100km and the second of eight laps around the main circuit, but as the pace was upped, a major crash rippled through the bunch with 95km to go, forcing Blasi to abandon and the likes of defending champion Magdeleine Vallieres (Canada) and Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mauritius) into a long chase.

The horror incident saw the peloton almost halved, with several riders requiring medical attention and abandoning, including Caroline Andersson (Sweden) and Lauretta Hanson (Australia).

With the race continuing on, the Dutch team resumed their control on the front through the indefatigable Lieke Nooijen, whose efforts in the bunch saw the two remaining breakaways both caught with 76km to go.

Without one of their leaders, Spain looked for a new path to success with Mireia Benito attacking with 61.3km to go, upsetting the rhythm being set by the Dutch team for most of the day. While this move was brought back, it encouraged the likes of Nina Berton (Luxembourg), Pfeiffer Georgi (Great Britain, and Cédrine Kerbaol (France) to make brief accelerations of their own.

The next attacker was the one who went away, though, with Kerbaol's teammate and two-time Tour de France Femmes stage winner Maeva Squiban attacking with 52km to go. Entering the final 50km, there were just 38 riders remaining in the peloton, with the French riders 22 seconds up the road.

The final 50km

Pieterse's efforts were so explosive that Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) was dropped, Kasia Niewiadoma (Poland) was dropped, as were all of the other top contenders. When Vollering finally went, with a violent surge 38.5km from the finish, Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) was the closest to being able to follow, but she too started to fade under the pressure.

Vollering reached Squiban in no time, who tried valiantly to hang onto the Dutch rider's wheel, but also quickly got burned as the favourite reaccelerated and went solo into the final 38km.

With a long way to go, Vollering didn't completely scorch away, with her lead stabilising around the 23-second mark, and an eight-rider chasing group forming behind her: Longo Borghini, Niewiadoma, Squiban, Célia Gery, Juliette Berthet (France), Dominika Włodarczyk (Poland), Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) and Pieterse. The race was far from done yet.

Niewiadoma and Longo Borghini worked away with full effort, and after the gap fluctuated between 30 seconds and 20 seconds, the Dutch rider began to be reeled back in with 17km to go. Suddenly, the Polish and Italian riders had the lone leader in their sights.

Contact was made with 15.3km to go, turning it into a leading trio, but Berthet was also close to coming back to make it a group of four heading into a thrilling final lap.

As they took the bell, rung by the winner of Worlds the last time it was in Montreal in 1974, Geneviève Gambillon, the pace started to come out of the lead quartet, prompting Longo Borghini to attack over the line with 13km to go.

Niewiadoma looked to Vollering to do the work, and the gap quickly went out to 10 seconds. The Dutch rider found another gear, though, as they went up the main climb for the final time, dropping Berthet and grinding away to catch Longo Borghini 200 metres from the top.

Paying for her efforts on the attack, Longo Borghini soon started to struggle under the pressure, leaving the top two from the Tour de France Femmes to battle it out for the victory in the final 11km.

With Vollering doing most of the work, an attack from Niewiadoma was inevitable, and she chose a kicker 4km from the line as her moment, grimacing as she accelerated in a final bid for glory.

Vollering weathered the storm, and it became clear that a two-up sprint was going to be needed to decide the new rainbow jersey. Arriving at the final corner with 750 metres to go, the Dutch rider led out from the front, with Niewiadoma sprinting 200 metres from the line.

Even after 180km of racing and 23 kilometres out in front on her own, Vollering still had enough in the tank to overhaul her great rival, with the emotions flowing out as soon as she crossed the line victorious.

Results

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The elite women's race was affected by a large crash that saw upwards of 15 riders go down with 95km to go at the 180.1km event held at the UCI Road World Championships on Saturday, including defending champion Magdeleine Vallieres (Canada) and Vuelta a España champion Paula Blasi (Spain), who was forced to abandon the race.

"When the race entered the circuit, it was crazy," Blasi said. "People were taking too many risks. Now, there was downhill, and three girls crashed but were all behind, so it just went over. Typical scratches from the road, not too much pain."

148 riders started the race tackling the hilly 180.1km route featuring the closing Mount Royal circuit and eight ascents of the Camillien-Houde climb (2.3km at 6.2%).

The incident happened once the peloton reached the second of eight laps, with the riders coming down 12km into the circuit along Rue Saint-Urbain before turning onto Ave des Pins in the first third of the peloton.

The crash also included Femke de Vries (Netherlands), Daniela Campos (Portugal), Julia Borgström (Sweden), Carina Schrempf (Austria),
Claudette Nyirarukundo (Rwanda), Flora Perkins (Great Britain), Kate Courtney and Grace Arlandson (USA), Marta Jaskulska (Poland), Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset (Norway), Adèle Normand (Canada), Lauretta Hanson (Australia), and Caroline Andersson (Sweden).

At the time of the crash, there was a breakaway of two riders that were part of an initial four-rider move in the peloton, including Natalie Quinn (Team USA) and Marte Berg Edseth (Norway), and they still had a three-minute gap.

The crash caused major splits in the peloton, with those involved in the incident scrambling to get back on their bikes and chasing to try and close the gaps, including Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mauritius) and Sarah Gigante (Australia), while Vallieres was left chasing at more than seven minutes back by the time they were partway through the third lap with 80km to go.

With visible wounds to her leg and hand, Vallieres abandoned, but not before arriving back at the finish line and waving to the crowds, bloodied, but with a huge smile still on her face as her title defence came to an early end.

Canada cycling's chief of sport Sebastien Travers spoke at the finish, but had little information to provide in the way of Vallieres' condition: "She's being evaluated by our doctors, as well as the organisation's doctors, and as soon as we know more, we will provide more information.

Travers hadn't yet seen the incident or spoken to the rider, but also said, "I'm hopeful she can rebound fast, and as I said, this is certainly not the last World Championships.

More to follow...

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Young Swiss star Anja Grossmann now has a pair of bronze medals from her two appearances in women's junior road races at the UCI Road World Championships. She was "happy, and also disappointed" at her performances in Montreal, coming away with fourth in the time trial and then crossing the line third in a sprint from a five-rider group in the road race late Friday afternoon.

Grossmann turns 19 next year and can soon put away any distaste of "hectic" junior racing as she moves to bigger objectives, namely a two-year road contract to race for FDJ United-Suez and also compete in cyclo-cross with their new Specialized TMRW UCI-registered squad.

Even during her post-race press conference on Friday, Grossmann was already thinking about her future teammates, Demi Vollering (Netherlands) and Kate Courtney (USA), both racing for their respective countries on Saturday in the elite women's road race at Montreal Worlds.

"I'm split in two because I'm Swiss," she said about rooting for compatriot Marlen Reusser, who won a second time trial title last Sunday, or pulling for FDJ trade team riders.

"I will cheer for the Swiss for sure because I know how strong they are and how nice they are. I will also cheer for Demi and for everyone from FDJ because Demi is my biggest idol. And also Kate Courtney is one of my biggest idols. It's a dream come true to ride next year for them."

In the last two years, Grossmann proved her road versatility by sweeping national titles in the time trial and road race. She also finished on the podium at two stages of Valromey Tour Féminin U19 and fourth at the junior In Flanders Fields [previously Gent-Wevelgem].

"FDJ, it's the best team for me to choose because they really also support me now, and they just give me the space to develop my best self, and they don't put any pressure on me," she said. "They also support that I love three disciplines, and that's pretty nice for me. I think that's the best thing that could happen to me, and I'm pretty grateful for that opportunity."

In addition to excelling on the road, Grossmann competes in cyclo-cross and mountain biking. She's a junior World Champion on the mountain bike, also winning the European Championships in both 2025 and 2026. The cyclo-cross season is just around the corner, where the former European junior champion can build her talents with a small but mighty squad, the new Specialized TMRW squad.

The CX team will also feature three-time CX World Champion Célia Gery, fellow French rider Jade Wiel and now Fem van Empel, who recently confirmed a restart to her cycling with the FDJ programme after 10 months away from cycling.

"With Fem, as with Anja Grossmann and Kate Courtney, we are also reinforcing our ambition to build a truly multi-disciplinary project, capable of welcoming great champions with their own backgrounds, personalities and ambitions," FDJ General Manager Stephen Delcourt said in a recent statement.

While Grossmann came short of a gold medal a second time at these championships, she said she learned a great deal about perseverance, and sounded much more mature than her 18 years.

"Junior racing is always a little bit more hectic and a little bit more without a clear tactic. I thought [the breakaway of] three was really strong. But maybe we should have worked a little bit more together," she said about getting away on the final two laps with a decisive front trio, who were later caught by two other riders with 2km to go.

"I wanted to work together, but it was not my decision; I cannot change other girls' minds. It is how it is. I think I learned from last year to don't get so nervous when other girls don't want to work together because I think my four laps or three laps today [Friday], the first ones, were pretty good.

"It's again a third place, but yeah, I learned [a lot], and I also will [try] to enjoy this one. Also after a week, I try to analyse that with my coach and try to get better and stronger, because you can always learn something from every race."

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Alejandra Neira gave Spain their third gold medal of the UCI Road World Championships, winning the junior women's road race in a hotly-contested five-rider sprint in Montreal.

Neira patiently waited until the final 150 metres to put in a massive turn of speed, leaving Matilde Rossignoli (Italy) in her wake to take silver, while Anja Grossmann (Switzerland) claimed third.

After the dual titles from Benjamín Noval in the junior men's time trial and road race, Neira's gold medal represents the future of Spanish cycling.

"I can't believe it. It's the best day of my life," Neira said. "I can't believe that I'm the World Champion. It's incredible."

Last year, it was Neira's teammate Paula Ostiz who won the title. Now it's her turn.

"Paula is a big, big friend, also teammate, and to be the World Champion after her, wow, incredible."

Neira was part of a three-rider escape along with Grossmann and Rossignoli, but the pair were caught in the final three kilometres by Maria Okrucińska (Poland) and Mirthe Mons (Netherlands), which shook her confidence a bit.

"When the other riders arrived, I lost a little bit my confidence, because Maria is a really good sprinter. But I tried to keep on her wheel, and then when I saw that I have to pass, I went."

Grossmann finished fourth in the junior women's time trial, so found redemption with a bronze medal, though she said the final 26km were a challenge after a missed water bottle.

"I think the the last two laps were pretty intense and pretty tough because the Spanish girl attacked at the feed zone and I didn't catch my bottle there, so I rode like two laps without my bottle," she said at the post-race press conference.

"That was hard because I got pretty bad cramps. But I think I worked really on my mental strength, and that just kept going. I'm not the best sprinter, but I just try to to sprint as best as I can."

Second half challenges and re-positioning

This year's route for the junior women measured 5.6km longer than the Kigali route and included a little more climbing, a total of 1,614 metres of elevation gain. Canada, Great Britain and Spain came with five riders each, giving them an edge with numbers.

It was not until the second lap that the complexion of the peloton began to change, with riders falling off the back rather than anyone accelerating away. Spain, Australia and Poland were represented at the front.

With just under 45km to go, French rider Sidonie Vachet put a spark in the proceedings with an attack at the front of a fractured peloton. She opened a slight 16-second gap on the uphill to start a fourth circuit, marking the halfway point of the 80.4km race.

Behind, Scout Wellmeier (USA) rode at the front with Lluna Jimenez (Spain), Eva Drhova (Czechia), the Australian duo Chloe Bowen and Neve Parslow, and Polish duo Maria Okrucińska and Amelia Szymańska, and another 31 riders packed into the peloton.

Bright sunshine helped the temperatures rise as high as 24°C (76°F), the warmest afternoon of the championships so far, and riders took on plenty of liquids at the feed zone along the climb. Across the summit of the Camillien-Houde, Vachet relented to the pace behind and the race reset.

Once across the Polytechnique climb and on the twisting city-centre streets of Montréal, Great Britain riders could be seen gathering at the front. But it was an acceleration from Colombia's Zara Sofia Lamprea that came on the approach to the Parc Avenue climb.

Lamprea carried a 10-second advantage, with Wellmeier trailing in solo second. The reduced peloton of 35 riders began the chase with two laps remaining at 20 seconds.

There was a crash at the front of the race under a heavy canopy of trees, with Lamprea and Wellmeier going down. Both were back riding quickly, but as they made the penultimate ascent of Camillien-Houde, the chase began closing down their effort.

A group of 10 crested the summit, and Lamprea just a few seconds behind and Wellmeier farther back, now chasers. France, Spain and Germany each had two riders, with one rider each from the USA, Netherlands, Great Britain and Switzerland. Then on the back side of Mont Royal, more riders tagged along for a bigger group.

Riders upped the pace to position at the front, passing crowds at the Polytechnique Montréal centre for science and technology, with a series of twisting turns on the descent causing riders to go wide on the course.

With 18.5km to go, Nabyenka García (Mexico) was the next rider to put in an extra effort, gapping the field by 15 seconds quickly on a flatter section. The Mexican rider looked back several times, and finally kept on the accelerator to go alone.

The bell lap rang with long shadows forming in the late Canadian afternoon, García still out front but only by 14 seconds. The curse of race leaders continued as she stopped for a mechanical, looking to reposition her chain, and was forced back in the peloton.

Wellmeier, Vachet, Parslow, Orucińska and Lidia Castro (Spain) were setting the pace at the bottom of the final ascent. Mirthe Mons (Netherlands) pushed the pace at the front, which seemed to spur others to give it a go. Soon a trio were at the front - Anja Grossmann (Switzerland), Alejandra Neira (Spain) and Matilde Rossignoli (Italy) - and with 10km to go had 20 seconds on Okrucińska and Mons.

With 4km to go, the trio weren't showing signs of working togehter, which allowed Mons and Okrucińska, the new world time trial champion, to edge closer in the chase.

"Maybe we should have worked a little bit more together, so the other two wouldn't came back. But that's junior racing because junior racing is always a little bit more hectic and a little bit more without a clear tactic. I wanted to work together, but it was not my decision," Grossmann said later.

With 2km to go, there were five to fight for three medals.

Mons struck first on the final climb. Then mountain bike world champion Grossman passed, then Rossignoli, but it was Neira who went wide on the right side and took the victory.

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Results

After four riders announced their departure in recent weeks, SD Worx-Protime are ramping up their recruitment with Axelle Dubau-Prévôt heading to the Dutch team in 2027.

Dubau-Prévôt will join the squad for two years and is the second French woman the team have recruited from EF Education-Oatly in recent weeks, with Cédrine Kerbaol announced earlier in September.

Though the 30-year-old Dubau-Prévôt only has one season riding at WorldTour level, and only returned to the road in 2025, she has competed in cyclocross, mountain bike and gravel, bagging top results in the latter discipline.

She rode with some success on the road as a junior, then spent the 2017 and 2018 seasons riding at Continental level for Spanish and Belgian teams. Despite this, her 2026 season was hugely successful, with 10th place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège as her outstanding result on the road. In gravel races this year, she has plenty of top-10 placings, with third at the European Championships her most notable result.

"We are convinced that Axelle still has plenty of room for improvement," the team’s sporting director Danny Stam said, admitting they have been following her since the UAE Tour in February.

“Precisely because we want to strengthen our squad for the Ardennes classics, she’s an excellent fit for us. As she had to ride many races in support of the team last season, we haven’t yet seen the best of her. There’s certainly still room for improvement when it comes to climbing.”

Dubau-Prévôt admitted she is still new to the sport, saying, "It wasn’t until 2026 that I turned fully professional for the first time. Before that, I combined cycling with my job as a nutritionist. I knew I had talent, but I thought, ‘What if I went all out for it?’

"After Liège-Bastogne-Liège, I got calls from several teams. I took a chance with Team SD Worx-Protime. I’ve been following this team for years. It’s a dream to now be part of it. It feels a bit bizarre: ten years ago, my career was more or less over, and now, in my thirties, I’m suddenly a member of one of the best cycling teams in the world."

Dubau-Prévôt, the sister of 2025 Tour de France Femmes champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, is the fourth rider to sign with SD Worx this year, balancing their losses, and joins Kerbaol, Eline Jansen and Rachele Barbieri.

Leaving the team are Marta Lach, Blanka Vas, Femke Markus and Julia Kopecký, while Elena Cecchini will retire after 15 years as a professional.

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South Africa's Ashleigh Moolman Pasio is gearing up for her last outing on the road as a professional, with Saturday's elite women's road race at the World Championships set to draw to a close her 17-year career.

The very last dance of Moolman Pasio's career will be at the Gravel World Championships in Nannup, Australia next month, she confirmed in a blog post on Friday, but Montreal will be her final road race as a professional.

Turning 41 in December, Moolman Pasio has been racing on the European UCI circuit since 2009, gaining her first UCI contract in 2010 with Lotto Ladies Team when she was 24, and she's been a stalwart of the peloton ever since then, for a long time one of the only African cyclists in the bunch.

Her career has spanned nearly two decades, and she's extended it multiple times in the last few years: she originally laid out her intentions to retire in 2022, then at the end of 2024, but extended her contract with AG Insurance-Soudal to bring her to the end of 2026.

Transitioning into the role of mentor and road captain in the last few years, she already has an important new career lined up: she will take over as the general manager of Team Amani for the 2027 season, aiming to help the team become the first African squad to race the Tour de France Femmes.

But first, there's the matter of closing the curtain on her own racing career.

"Now, I find myself in Montreal, just days away from my final road race," she wrote in a blog post on the Rocacorba Collective website, her cycling community founded in Girona.

"The preparation has not been completely smooth. I have not raced as much as I would have liked during the second half of the season, but I have continued to find ways to challenge myself. Racing virtually has helped me grow stronger week by week, push beyond my comfort zone and enjoy the process of building towards one final goal on the road.

"So, one last time on the road, I have done everything I can to prepare. I have arrived here in good shape, confident in my form and ready to give this final road race one enormous shot. I want to race bravely. I want to empty the tank. Most of all, I want to cross that finish line knowing that I gave everything I had, with no regrets."

On Saturday, she will form part of a four-rider South Africa team, alongside Hayley Preen, Tiffany Keep and Lisa Bone. In some years, she has been South Africa's sole representative at the World Championships, but will line up alongside her compatriots this year, as well as riders from Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Rwanda and multiple other African nations.

"My racing journey will not be completely over - there is still one final adventure awaiting me at the Gravel World Championships - but Montreal will close an enormous and defining chapter of my life," she wrote.

"Then, I will be ready to move into the next one: using everything this sport has taught me to help pave the way for the next generation of African cyclists. To share my experience, knowledge and belief with young riders who may not yet realise what is possible - just as I once could not imagine what was possible for me."

In her blog post, she shared various anecdotes and stories from her career, including the holiday with her now-husband Carl where he became convinced she could be one of the world's finest cyclists, and the decision to leave the world of study and engineering to pursue a career in the sport.

"After graduating, we took an enormous leap of faith and moved to Europe so I could try to build a professional cycling career. I could never have imagined where that decision would lead," she wrote.

"I never dreamt that I would compete at four Olympic Games, win mountain stages of the Giro, stand on the Giro podium multiple times, finish on the podium at Flèche Wallonne, win Emakumeen Bira and the Tour de Romandie, or become the first UCI Cycling Esports World Champion during the pandemic. I certainly never imagined that I would spend 17 years racing among the very best cyclists in the world."

She also reflected on how her career has changed and evolved over the years, such as taking more interest in virtual racing during the pandemic, setting up the Rocacorba Collective and its ambitions to empower female riders, the biggest lessons of her career, and recovering from a broken back in 2024.

"Seventeen years ago, I arrived in Europe with a dream that initially felt far too big," she wrote. "Now, as I prepare to pin on a number for my final road race, I can look back with immense pride and gratitude. Not only for the results, but for the person this journey has helped me become, for the people who have walked it with me and for the community that will remain long after the racing ends.

"One last race on the road. One final opportunity to give it everything. No regrets."

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The Dutch women came into this Road World Championships in Montreal with a unique strategy compared to previous years; the nucleus centred on one rider. While it may seem obvious that Demi Vollering, the world's top rider, would lead the charge, it wasn't a slam dunk.

The decision breaks from the multi-faceted options used in the past by the Dutch team. Vollering is a prolific winner, but she has never won a world or national title. But you can't ignore that she is a European Champion, has two yellow jerseys from the Tour de France Femmes and plenty of momentum coming into Canada.

"She is incredibly focused, that's true. Two days after the Tour de France, I got the first message already from her, 'OK, job's not finished'. I was like, 'OK, she's on'," Laurens ten Dam, the Dutch coach, told Cyclingnews on Thursday evening.

"I think 10 days after the Tour de France, I saw her [at a F1 race] and I saw the fire in her eyes. It showed me that she's not done yet with the season. She wants to have this jersey for next season, so that's the most important."

He said the team selection was made looking at all results, as well as how races unfolded. While there is no Marianne Vos or Anna van der Breggen [out with illness – Ed.], he said the team was solid and "Demi is the biggest chance of winning".

"I think Laurens especially did a really good job with [team selection]. He had a lot of contact with everyone, and he also reported back to me. All the girls are fully on board with that," Vollering told a small media gathering, including Cyclingnews, two days before the road race.

"We have a nice selection here and also really a luxury position representing the Netherlands. We have Anna [van der Breggen] out, of course, and Chantal [van den Broek-Blaak, retired - Ed.] is out, but in the end I don't necessarily think that we have a lesser team here.

"I really think that we have a very nice plan that is super clear for all of us, but of course I'm not going to tell you that. We can say afterwards, I think," she laughed.

This year she lines up with Karlijn Swinkels, Riejanne Markus, Lieke Nooijen, Puck Pieterse, Amber Kraak and Femke De Vries. Last year, Markus was fifth in the Worlds road race, while Swinkels is in form, having recently won the GP de Wallonie.

"I also kind of like specific pressure, that all these riders are [supporting] you now. That ultimately gives me that extra percentage on the course later, during the race, to be able to finish it off, and I actually thrive on that. [It is] a bit of a sense of responsibility to also give the girls a reward for their work."

The reigning European Champion goes back to work at her first UCI race since winning back-to-back Grand Tours. And before that, she dominated the spring with wins at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the Tour of Flanders, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège for a third time.

"I think I'm in good shape, but in the end, you only really start feeling that when you're riding around on the course and when you also see the competition," she said.

"I also think this is a course where, if you don't have the absolute best legs, you can still come a very long way. So even if the feeling isn't 100%, then you should never lose hope, because it's so long. I think it can really become a very interesting race in that regard."

The elite women face a hilly 180.1km route that favours Vollering, with the closing Mount Royal circuit done eight times, featuring the Camillien-Houde climb.

Her Worlds road race history consists of a silver in Glasgow, fifth in Zurich, and seventh places in Leuven and Kigali. She wants to add a rainbow jersey, but it is not ever-present in her mindset going into race day.

"Hopefully this is the reward, but we don't know; that is something we don't have in control. But what we do during the race, we have control, so that's more what I thought.

"This year I've shown that whether the climbs are shorter or longer, that I'm in a position to make a difference in different places. I definitely think it can be a Demi-course if it's just made hard enough."

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Lotte Kopecky will line up in Montreal on Saturday as one of just two women to have worn the rainbow stripes as world champion alongside reigning champion Magdeleine Vallieres.

The Belgian has won the Road Worlds twice before, in Glasgow in 2023 and Zurich in 2024. She's perhaps not the top favourite to win again in the 180.1km elite women's road race on Saturday, but she lines up among the main contenders for the win.

Instead, it's Giro and Tour champion Demi Vollering who lines up as the top favourite for glory in Montreal as head of the Dutch squad. Speaking on Friday, she acknowledged that Vollering stands out as the favourite, but pointed out that there are plenty of other contenders.

"I think she might well be the woman to beat, but there are a lot of riders lying in wait with many strong qualities who certainly shouldn't be considered inferior to Demi. I'm also very curious to see how the race unfolds on Saturday," Kopecky told VTM.

"The form of the day will be decisive. I'm hoping for a top day for myself – fresh legs, a good feeling. If that top day comes, then a lot is possible."

Kopecky leads a strong Belgian squad on Saturday, with Belgian champion Shari Bossuyt and former Omloop Het Nieuwsblad champion Lotte Claes also in the squad, along with Sandrine Tas, Margot Vanpachtenbeke, and Julie Van De Velde.

Vollering's Dutch squad, along with Spain, France, and Italy, stand out among the other strong teams which will take on the challenging Mount Royal circuit in Montreal. The 148-strong peloton will tackle eight laps of the hilly circuit which features the Camillien Houde climb (1.7km at 7.3%).

Kopecky reconned the circuit earlier this week, calling it a "very tough" challenge with few chances to recover. She said that people counted her out ahead of the Zurich Worlds, which featured a similarly tough climb. Of course, she went on to win then, sprinting to victory from a group of six riders, including Vollering.

"I learned that it's a very tough circuit. A very fast course with very few recovery moments. If we look at today's races, it's an extremely tough elimination race, a battle of attrition," she said.

"I'm not comparing this course to Zurich, but I'm of the opinion that the majority of people also considered Zurich too tough for me. I'm very happy that I proved them wrong there."

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In her first full cycling season, 20-year-old Mara Winter (Switzerland) almost reached the podium in the UCI Road World Championships under-23 women's road race.

Winter was beaten by Fleur Moors (Belgium) in the sprint of a small group that decided the bronze medal, 33 seconds behind world champion Viktória Chladoňová (Slovakia) and runner-up Isabella Holmgren (Canada).

"I think I just missed the peak power. The sprint was too short; for me it's better if it's a bit longer. But I wasn't sure whether I could start the sprint or not, and I thought, I just have to hang on and hope that the rider in front of me can stay with the Belgian rider. I had to pass her, close the gap to the Belgian, and then I could not pass her anymore," Winter described the sprint.

Although this left her off the podium, she was more than satisfied with her fourth place.

"At the moment, I cannot believe it. I'm really, really happy with the result. Of course, fourth place is the second loser … no, actually I'm really happy," said Winter with a big smile on her face.

This happiness is very understandable given that Winter only began competing in national-level races in 2025, winning Chur-Arosa, a 29.3km race with 1191 metres of elevation, climbing from the capital of Graubünden to the resort town of Arosa. Previous winners include Marlen Reusser, Clara Koppenburg, and Petra Stiasny, and this result brought Winter to the attention of Swiss Continental team Nexetis, who signed her for 2026.

In May, she made her stage race debut at the 2.2 Tour de Feminin in Czechia, an important step in her development. At the end of June, Winter became the Swiss U23 ITT champion and placed fourth in the elite road race championships.

"The Tour de Feminin was my first stage race and I really enjoyed it. The roads were really good, and it was a great opportunity to learn because you had four days in a row. It was so cool to race there."

The Nexetis team has sent several riders to the Women's WorldTour, with Jasmin Liechti signing for Canyon-SRAM and Ginia Caluori going to Movistar for 2027. Winter says that she still has some way to go before she feels ready for the biggest stage.

"I only started to really race last year, so I think I have to see, to learn, and then when I have learned a bit, it comes by itself. I don't know how my way is going, and what's going to happen.

"At the moment, I'm just enjoying it. I'm also competing in mountain biking, and I want to go on with that. I really hope that I can continue to do both because I really enjoy both, and I think I can learn from both disciplines," Winter said, adding that she wants to keep her options open.

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When Viktória Chladoňová (Slovakia) raised her arms on the finish line of the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal, having just beaten home favourite Isabella Holmgren (Canada) in the U23 women's road race to win the rainbow jersey, it was the fulfilment of a dream she'd had ever since her silver medal in Kigali last year, where she finished behind Célia Gery (France).

"It was my dream [to win] after last year's second place; I really wanted to have a first place now. I had a plan in my mind. I tried to attack to make it as small a group as possible, and it was perfect.

"With Isabella, we really cooperated well, and then it was up to the final sprint. I'm super happy that I could take the world title," she said at the press conference in the Athletics centre of McGill University, just off the finishing straight.

Chladoňová took charge of the race herself, not waiting for the bigger nations to make their moves. Instead, she went on the attack and made the decisive selection when she got Holmgren and Fleur Moors (Belgium) with her.

"I had a plan that I wanted to go first, maybe solo, or at least with some strong girls, to make the group smaller and without sprinters. That was the first goal, so with three laps to go, I attacked multiple times. In the end, it was Fleur, Isabella and me, and I think it was a perfect situation because we all cooperated and it was such an amazing ride also from them," Chladoňová explained.

Holmgren attacked several times on the final lap, attempting to shake off the Slovakian rider who is a better sprinter. Moors had to let go on the Voie Camillien-Houde, leaving a duo at the front, but Chladoňová could reply to each and every attack.

"I knew she really wanted to go solo. It was a very hard attack, but I managed to stay on her wheel, and then I knew that my chances in the sprint were higher. It was the perfect tactical play, and also what I had planned, so it's even better that I could finish it off," she said.

The Canadian crowds were cheering for Holmgren, but their claps, bells, whistles, and roars also helped Chladoňová along.

"The crowd was really pushing us. I can imagine it means a lot for the Canadians, and they also had a super strong team, so I tried to focus on them. But the crowd was amazing, and it really gave me extra watts," she said.

Just before the right turn onto the finishing straight, Holmgren let Chladoňová come through, securing the position on the Slovakian's wheel ahead of the uphill sprint. Holmgren faked a first acceleration, then launched her sprint but saw Chladoňová react right away.

"I knew that the second position is maybe better for a sprint, but I kept an eye on her, and when she started sprinting, I immediately responded. It was a very hard, long sprint, not like a flat sprint. It was about who had more in the legs. I was pretty confident to start in the first position," the new world champion was always in control on the final kilometre.

In a race where the biggest nations had five or even six riders, Slovakia came through to take the victory with only three riders. Sofia Ungerová went into the early breakaway while Nina Andacká stayed with Chladoňová to support her in the peloton.

"We definitely wanted to send someone in the break. It was super helpful for me because I could stay on the wheels and take it easy. And I had one teammate with me who really helped me with the nutrition or the positioning, to get me to the front or just a little pacing on the climb. That was definitely also a big help. I couldn't have done it without them," Chladoňová thanked her teammates.

Already in her second year on the Women's WorldTour with Visma-Lease a Bike, it's easy to forget that Chladoňová is still only 19 years old, not turning 20 until November. This added a complication her 2026 season as she had to take exams in the spring.

"At the start of the season, I had school duties, so I couldn't train and race properly. I finished high school in the spring, so now I can focus fully on cycling. I took the steps to train, and it felt amazing that my goal came true. It gives me even bigger motivation to have next season be even more successful."

With high school ticked off and a road race rainbow jersey – her second rainbow jersey after winning the junior women's world title on the mountain bike in 2024 – on her shoulders, it is now time to enjoy the success, though without losing the next objective out of sight.

"I want to celebrate it with my teammates and the whole Slovak national cycling team. It's something so big that I still can't imagine. I want to just celebrate it with them and enjoy, maybe have a nice dinner. I also need to focus on Europeans afterwards, but now the plan is to celebrate with the team around me," she finished.

Since Montreal is renowned for its excellent food scene, Chladoňová and her whole team can look forward to a very good dinner to celebrate her new rainbow jersey in style.

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Plans don't always work, and on Thursday the plan for a solo charge to a gold medal in the women's under-23 road race at the Road World Championships in Montréal turned into silver for home favourite Isabella Holmgren.

"Of course, I'm disappointed to not win for Canada, but there are so many positives from today. So I can't be too upset," Isabella Holmgren told media in the post-race press conference.

"I think if I had the legs, then I would have been alone. In the end, it came down to a sprint, which isn't ideal for me. But I did everything I could on the day."

The plan did not include a sprint finish. One of Isabella Holmgren's four teammates, Kiara Lylyk, said after the race that they agreed the night before for each rider to take turns on early and late laps to move their leader safely around the 13.4km circuit. Isabella Holmgren was then prepped for a solo attack on the penultimate circuit.

With three laps to go, Team Canada had three riders in the front group of around 20 riders: Isabella Holmgren, Ava Holmgren and Sidney Swierenga. Viktória Chladoňová (Slovakia) moved close to the front and reacted with Isabella Holmgren when Fleur Moors (Belgium) accelerated with 31km remaining.

"Yeah, Viki went, so I knew I needed to be there, and I had to follow her. And then with one lap to go, we knew that we had to try to lose Fleur on the first climb because you don't want to sprint Fleur, you probably won't win," the silver medallist recalled, laughing lightly.

"I gave everything on that first climb on the last lap, and it wasn't enough to be solo. And then I tried again on the last climb, but once again, Viki was able to follow.

"I just had to give everything I could [in the final uphill of 600 metres], because you can see the line. So really, you just have to empty the tank until you get there. I knew maybe I don't have the upper hand in a sprint, but I still had to try because yeah, you never know."

Before the trio escaped, Isabella said she communicated with all her teammates, as there were no race radios. But they knew each rider had a job.

"I think Alex and Kira did a really good job at keeping us closer to the front and making sure no attacks were going. And then Ava asked me if she could do anything later on in the race, and I told her it had to be a bit harder, so she did a really, really strong climb. I was happy that the race was getting harder because I think that's more suited to me."

That was with four and three laps to go, and then she found herself launching into a three-rider break one lap earlier than she wanted to go. Then it came down to the pair of highly-motivated racers who wanted the rainbows, the Slovakian who was second in the U23 road race last year in Kigali and the Canadian on home roads who was sixth last year.

"In the end, I wasn't the strongest today, but I'm really proud of Viki. She's such a nice competitor, so she really deserved it," Isabella said.

"For sure, I wanted to win in front of a home crowd and finish the work that all of my teammates did to help me today. But yeah, it's easy to be disappointed. But I think I just need to be really happy with how the race went and how we raced as a team.

"There were so many people cheering for us on the side of the road. It is so special just hearing my name. I could hear my friends and family cheering, but there were also just so many people that I didn't know supporting me and supporting Team Canada.

"It's definitely super special to race at home. I've never had a big international race like this in Canada. So, it was just such an amazing day. I'm just so grateful for the crowd."

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