When Mondiaux Montréal 2026 president Sébastien Arsenault bumped into Bernard Hinault earlier this 12 months, he could not assist however search his counsel on how one can put collectively the Street World Championships course.
As ever, Le Blaireau’s reply was frank and to the purpose: “You have already got your course!”
The complete particulars have but to be ironed out with the native authorities and signed off by the UCI, but it surely appears more and more doubtless that the route of the 2026 Worlds in Montréal will bear greater than a passing resemblance to that of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal.
Then once more, how might it’s every other manner? The circuit by means of the Parc du Mont-Royal has a biking heritage like few others exterior the game’s conventional heartland.
There was a agency reminder of that in this weekend’s early presentation of the 2026 World Championships in Montréal, when Eddy Merckx spoke by way of video message, recalling his triumph within the Parc du Mont-Royal in 1974, which was the primary time the World Championships occurred exterior of Europe.
On the time, regardless of the custom and enthusiasm in outposts akin to Colombia, the highest stage of the game was successfully a closed store, the protect of some nations in Western Europe. These 1974 Worlds marked the formal starting of biking’s makes an attempt at mondialisation.
That Canadian expedition was a novelty, however the excessive difficulties of the course meant there was nothing unfamiliar in regards to the world champion it produced. On a day with greater than 5,000 metres of whole climbing, Merckx notched up his third rainbow jersey after outlasting Raymond Poulidor within the dash, whereas Geneviève Gambillon of France claimed the ladies’s occasion.
The putting circuit by means of the Parc du Mont-Royal, with repeated ascents of the Côte Camilien-Houde, was instantly established as one thing of a traditional. It featured once more two years later when Montréal hosted the 1976 Olympic Video games, and a model of it was used between 1988 and 1992, when the Grand Prix des Amériques attracted high European professionals again throughout the Atlantic.
When Serge Arsenault rebooted that occasion in 2010 with the Grand Prix Cyclistes de Québec et de Montréal, the Parc du Mont-Royal had been at all times going to be the beating coronary heart of the second leg of the double-header. And, though full particulars of the route will not be confirmed till the UCI inspectors have given their formal imprimatur, it’ll clearly function closely in 2026 too. The one query is how a lot.
“When an individual like Bernard Hinault tells you that you have already got your Worlds, then it is clear that you simply needn’t change a lot,” Sébastien Arsenault advised reporters after a brief presentation of the occasion on the weekend.
“If you happen to converse to riders from that technology, it would not shock me if all of them advised you an identical factor. They’d say do the Worlds solely on the GP de Montréal circuit. The Worlds will probably be 270km lengthy as an alternative of 220km, so there will be riders all over and you may find yourself with a fantastic champion. It is going to be bordel and a fantastic winner.”
‘The essential factor is to have spectacle’
It could definitely make for a most demanding elite males’s street race. The GP de Montréal at present entails 18 laps of a 12.3km circuit over the Côte Camillien-Houde (1.8km at 8%), the Côte Polytechnique (780m at 6%), Panguelo (600m at 7%) and the Avenue du Parc (560m at 4%).
It provides as much as a complete of 4,842m of climbing throughout 221.4km. Including 4 laps to deliver the race as much as Worlds distance would additionally push the overall climbing to some 5,918m. For reference, the powerful Innsbruck 2018 course in the end featured lower than 5,000m of climbing.
Though the prevailing circuit is a bit of shorter than the UCI Technical Information would suggest, that’s unlikely to show an impediment. The circuit used on the GP de Montréal appears more likely to endure minor tweaks for the primary occasion reasonably than in depth surgical procedure.
“The UCI are very open, the essential factor is to have spectacle,” Arsenault mentioned. “However we are going to make some small variations.”
And, regardless of Hinault’s recommendation, Arsenault doesn’t rule out the thought of incorporating a point-to-point opening part for the elite races earlier than the riders deal with the ending circuit a component launched to the Worlds in Geelong in 2010 and infrequently mimicked since.
Given the backing from town authorities, it’s sure that each one occasions will begin and end in Montréal itself, however Arsenault floated the opportunity of routing the elite street races over the Saint Lawrence to the Rive-Sud earlier than ending on the Parc du Mont-Royal circuit.
“We’re working with the UCI. Now we have to discover a stability. The primary half is the sporting facet, then we take a look at what’s telegenic and at what is the least disruptive for town, as a result of we will not shut down the entire city both,” mentioned Arsenault, who recommended the time trial course may embrace the biking path in Voie Maritime Park.
“It isn’t determined but, however we do have the thought of utilizing the biking path there for the time trials, perhaps with the cameras on boats and with town as a backdrop. We’re at all times every part, like movie administrators, we’re each angle.”
One certainty is that the Avenue du Parc, website of the grand finale to the GP de Montréal, will host the end line for all occasions on the 2026 Worlds. And, no matter their last configuration, the eventual street races will probably be demanding bodily and sophisticated tactically.
“It is not likely a course the place there’s one explicit nook or climb the place you’ll want to be in entrance,” Adam Yates mentioned after profitable the GP de Montréal on Sunday. “And it is a tremendous exhausting race. There’s by no means a degree the place you really really feel good, it is simply that you simply assume perhaps I might strive one thing.”
In different phrases, it is exhausting to argue with Bernard Hinault.
