A Worlds with nobody in charge
For the first time in three years the rainbow jersey started the men’s road race without Tadej Pogačar in it — his Vuelta crash and collarbone ruled out the three-peat — and the result was a race that everyone could win and nobody could control. 273.4 km from Brossard, over the St. Lawrence and into twelve laps of the Mont Royal circuit, 3,803 metres of climbing, on a cool, windy morning of arm warmers and vests. A sixteen-rider break went early with Biniam Girmay, Andreas Leknessund and Montréal’s own Guillaume Boivin in it, and was allowed 8:15 while Mexico rode tempo for Del Toro. Then France took over for Paul Seixas, Bruno Armirail spent an afternoon on the front dismantling the escape lap by lap, and by the time the circuit had done its first real damage the break was seven riders at two and a half minutes and the peloton behind it was already thinning. And that was the calm part.
Van der Poel throws the first punch
The race the Luxembourg solo had promised arrived with 85 km to go: Mathieu van der Poel attacked, and Wout van Aert, Primož Roglič, Oscar Onley and Quinn Simmons went with him — six riders, forty seconds, and a peloton suddenly full of federations doing arithmetic without earpieces. Isaac del Toro countered on Camillien-Houde and dragged Evenepoel and Seixas across; Ayuso, Healy, Ciccone and Jorgenson chased; the front reformed, then split, then reformed. At 50 km Van der Poel went again and shed everyone but Simmons and Roglič, Ben Healy bridged to make it four, and for ten minutes it looked like the Dutchman’s day — until the circuit, as it does, brought them back. At 35 km Del Toro lit Camillien-Houde one more time and the group that came over the top together was a dozen strong, with Evenepoel visibly on the limit and Van Aert quietly switching from attacker to bodyguard for him.
Thirty-two kilometres, no radios
When a dozen riders regroup with two and a half laps to go and everyone has already attacked once, somebody has to be the first to do it again. McNulty attacked at 32.4 km, and every reason the others had for not chasing lined up behind him at once. Del Toro, his UAE teammate for the other eleven months of the year, wasn’t going to tow rivals up to him; Jorgenson and Simmons sat on the front of the group and rode like men admiring the scenery. Ten seconds became 33 at 28 km and more than a minute soon after — even after McNulty overcooked a corner and had to gather himself. Tom Pidcock did most of the honest chasing, and on the last time up Camillien-Houde he and Giulio Ciccone hauled the gap down to ten seconds with 9 km left, the whole race suddenly back in play. Then, exactly as it had all afternoon, cooperation died: nobody wanted to spend their last reserves towing a rival to the line. Van der Poel went on Polytechnique, Pidcock countered, Mauro Schmid tried late, and McNulty — head bobbing, riding on fumes — rebuilt to 34 seconds and crossed the line 13 clear. Behind, Healy attacked in the final kilometre, Michael Matthews followed him, led onto the Avenue du Parc drag and sprinted from 600 metres out to hold off Van der Poel and Simmons for silver. “Until the last 300 metres I really didn’t believe it, I was so tired,” McNulty said. “I guess today miracles happen.”
The mountain he already owned
Miracle is generous to himself. McNulty won the GP de Montréal on this exact circuit last September and was third here two weeks ago behind Del Toro and Seixas — the two riders least able to chase him today, one his trade teammate, the other cooked by the effort of splitting the race. The 28-year-old from Phoenix has spent his career a rung short: sixth in Tokyo after animating the Olympic road race, fourth in last year’s Worlds time trial by twelve seconds, and in July climbing off the Tour just ahead of the broom wagon after being hit by a car in training. Eleven weeks later he is the first American men’s road world champion since Lance Armstrong in 1993, and only the third after Greg LeMond. “We had Quinn up in an earlier move, which let me and Matteo play a bit in the back,” he said. “I chose the right moment to go and never looked back.” Matthews, who turned 36 on Saturday, took his fourth Worlds road medal — silver in 2015, bronze in 2017 and 2022 — after a pulmonary embolism and two broken arms had twice convinced him he was finished: “I just got beaten by a better bike rider today. Chapeau to Brandon.” Van der Poel, bronze, put the whole afternoon in one sentence: “Racing without earpieces always makes for the best races.”
From the fences
Grupetto was on the mountain again, a fortnight after walking it for the Grand Prix, and if that day was a festival, this one was a stadium with the roof off. The crowd was enormous and it was everywhere — not just the Camillien-Houde wall of noise but Polytechnique, Pagnuelo, the residential corners, the descents, every metre of the loop packed three deep and still filling at lap eight. Twelve laps of a race that never settled meant twelve different races going past the same spot: the break with Boivin in it and a roar for a local; Van der Poel’s six-man move with the crowd screaming the gap before the motos could; Del Toro’s acceleration you could hear coming up the hill in cowbells; and then McNulty, alone, passing a wall of flags that had no idea what to make of him and cheered anyway. A crowd that spent all week being told the race was wide open took it as an instruction. Rowdy is the polite word. It was magnificent.
In the grupetto
Michael Woods, in the last race of his career, 35th in front of his own country. Hugo Houle, punctured early on his birthday and riding for the team anyway. Boivin, who showed his city the front of a World Championships for a hundred kilometres. Quinn Simmons, who was in the six-man move, the four-man move and the sprint, and finished fourth — the best day’s work by anyone who didn’t win. Evenepoel, who owned Monday’s time trial, spent Sunday on the ragged edge of every selection and rolled in twelfth. And Pidcock, who chased when nobody else would and got sixth for the trouble — the grupetto’s honorary member of the week.
Moral of the story
Everyone attacked, everyone got caught, and the race went to the man who went when the others were tired of going. The grupetto’s moral: in a race without a favourite, the favourite is whoever stops waiting for one. No radios, no Pogačar, no consensus — and the rider who’d already won on this mountain read the moment the rest were still arguing about. The rainbow jersey goes to Phoenix; the noise stays on Mont Royal. We’ll be back.
