The 2026 UCI Road World Championships get underway in Montréal (Canada) this weekend with the Elite individual time trials (ITT) opening proceedings on Sunday 20 September. Competition will continue through until Sunday 27 September in the Québec city, which welcomes the UCI World Championships for road cycling for the second time, half a century after an historic first in 1974.
Nearly 1100 riders from 100 nations will compete across the different events on the programme. In total, 13 UCI World Champion titles will be awarded, beginning for the seven time trials from Sunday to Tuesday. The opening Elite ITTs for women and men will be followed by both Under 23 ITTs on Monday. Tuesday will highlight the strength and depth of the nations’ time trial pools with the team time trial - mixed relay in the morning. The Junior individual events will follow in the afternoon.
The road races will unfold from Thursday to Sunday: Women Under 23 followed by Men Junior on Thursday, Men Under 23 then Women Junior on Friday, Women Elite on Saturday and the Men Elite on Sunday.
ITT: Elite UCI World Champions back for more
All the time trials begin at Avenue du Parc, one of central Montréal’s major streets, and return for a scenic and demanding finish at the Jeanne Mance Park. The Women Elite and Men Elite will ride the same 39.2km course with 220 metres of elevation gain. They will cross the St Lawrence river to visit the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, home of the Formula 1 Grand Prix, before returning to the Old Montreal and heading to the uphill finish.
The riders participating in the other events follow similar but shortened courses: 31.2km for the Men Under 23; 20.2km for the Women Under 23, the Men Junior and the team time trial - mixed relay (the three men in each team will cover the 20.2km first and relay to their three women teammates); 10.7km for the Women Junior event.
On a mostly flat and technical course, the defending Elite UCI World Champions, Remco Evenepoel (BEL) and Marlen Reusser (SUI) gear up to defend their rainbow stripes. Can Italy’s Filippo Ganna or Switzerland’s Stefan Küng stop the Belgian from winning a record-breaking fourth consecutive title? Will Reusser repeat the feat of fending off Dutch power in the women’s event?
From Sweden’s Jakob Söderqvist to the Netherlands’ Megan Arens, the respective entry lists published on the UCI website are peppered with powerhouses intent on showing their worth on the UCI Road Worlds stage.
Road races: Puncheurs to tame the Voie Camillien-Houde
The road races will be mainly centred around the Mont-Royal Circuit: 13.4km with 269m of elevation gain. Lap after lap, it will sap energy and offer riders with an attacking mindset many opportunities to test their rivals’ legs, particularly on the climb of Voie Camillien-Houde (1.67 km at 7.4%, with a maximum gradient of 10%). This is the main climbing challenge on roads that most recently saw Mexico’s Isaac del Toro win the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal ahead of Frenchman Paul Seixas.
“A cycling race is a test of endurance and strategy but, above all, a test of attrition,” says Sébastien Arsenault, President of the Local Organising Committee. “I quickly understood that with Camillien-Houde, I had found the main character of my film.”
The races in the youth classes will be entirely held on the circuit. The Elite events will venture outside of Montréal before returning to Mont-Royal, where the women will tackle the final circuit eight times (total length of the race: 180.4km with 2570m of elevation gain) and the men 12 times (273.7km, 3803m).
These challenges will bring to the forefront resilient and punchy riders. Del Toro and Seixas both dream of a historically young conquest. Evenepoel, UCI World Champion in the road race in 2022 and in the time trial the last three years, is also a favourite and cannot be excluded from achieving the ITT – road race double, as he did at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
In the Women Elite road race, eyes will be on Demi Vollering (NED), who ruled the Ardennes in the spring and conquered the Maillot Jaune of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift with powerful attacks on rolling terrain. Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky is intent on reclaiming the rainbow jersey she won in 2023 and 2024. But Canadian crowds will very likely have a different vision: at home, can Madeleine Vallières Mill stay on top of the world?
Entry lists for the different events at the 2026 UCI Road World Championships