Belgium entered the elite men’s road race at the UCI World Championships as the favourites, with Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert representing two of the top five contenders for Sunday’s main event in Montreal.
But as the 270km epic began to unfold, it quickly became clear that neither of them were at the level they were hoping to be, as an early attack from van Aert with 88km remaining saw him go up the road in the break, only to be dropped by an acceleration from his eternal rival Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) 14km later.
Unable to live with the pace, he rode in between the lead group and the chasing bunch of other favourites before, with 60km, trouble started to set in for Evenepoel. His teammates Thibau Nys and Gianni Vermeersch had signalled to the media that he wasn’t feeling at his best after they abandoned, and that materialised into him being dropped as the likes of Isaac del Toro (Mexico) started to apply the pressure.
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However, it was much earlier than Evenepoel, and Van Aert both knew it wasn’t going to be their day. By the time eventual winner Brandon McNulty (USA) went away solo with 32km to go from a lead break of 12, they had already been dropped.
“It was tough actually from the first lap on; I felt I was not on a great day, so it’s pretty shit that it happened today,” said Evenepoel to Eurosport after the finish. “But I think there are no excuses; the strongest always wins on World, so that’s life
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“I hoped to break through in the final stretch, but the course didn’t allow for that. Especially not if you weren’t at your best. It was a matter of suffering and gritting my teeth,” he added, speaking to Flemish broadcaster Sporza.
“Kind of disappointed; came here for more as a team, personally as well, but on the other hand theres not much regret that I can have,” concurred Van Aert at the finish.
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“The legs hurt really bad really early on, and I still tried to do an early move so I could get ahead of the race, which was good. But especially Mathieu [Van der Poel] was already super strong at that time, and once I was dropped there, we still kind of kept close, so I still believe there was something possible. But at some point there was not much more to do for me than helping Remco a bit, and in the last laps I was just crawling to the finish.
“It was super tough and too tough for me. I rode a good race, but the lights went out 4 or 5 laps from the end. I’m bummed about it, but there wasn’t any more in it.”
As Van Aert said, he eventually realised his own dreams of a maiden rainbow jersey were not going to come true on this occasion, so he was seen working to try and return Evenepoel to the front group, with riders coming back to the lead on several occasions as an incredibly attritional and tactical finale played out.
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In the end, Evenepoel did mount two counter moves as he came back, but he clearly lacked the power of a full-strength version of himself, eventually taking 12th place at the finish, 25 seconds down on McNulty and 12 seconds behind Michael Matthews (Australia) in second.
“Wout told me he wanted to ride for a bit. I knew already at that moment that I was not feeling great, so I think it’s just because Wout really wanted to do something, so I’m grateful to him for doing that. But I knew pretty quickly that today was not going to be my day to win,” said Evenepoel.
“Gosh… That was more like trying something in the hope that the others wouldn’t react to it. I had a feeling that that move in the penultimate lap was the right one,” he added of the late attacks. “Then Del Toro closed the gap. That is a shame. If I could pick the right days, it would be easy. The strongest won, that was clear.”
For Evenepoel, he stayed positive despite the obvious disappointment of failing to leave Worlds with the historic double he was hoping for, but he will have two more chances for major glory before the season is up, at the European Championships next weekend, and Il Lombardia in October.
“There is still a lot to come,” he said. “Hopefully, things will run a bit better starting next week.”
For Van Aert, though, this was the last chapter of what’s been an incredible 2026 season for him, winning Paris-Roubaix and dominating the Vuelta a España by taking green, two stages, and helping Matt Brennan to five stage wins. He confirmed that “No, it’s my last race; it’s holiday from now on.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
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