The best riders who have never won at the Road World Championships – and who could change that in 2026

The UCI Road World Championships are a goal for every rider, a breeze for some (if your name is Tadej Pogačar), but a bar-banging frustration for so many top riders.

While every major one-day race takes careful planning to reach peak form, uninterrupted focus, keen strategy, loyal teammates and skilled sports directors and staff, Worlds takes riders out of the comfort zone of their trade teams and thrusts them into unfamiliar clothing, surrounded by different teammates and helpers.

Wout van Aert (Belgium)

For a rider as talented and with such deep palmarès as Wout van Aert, a road world title is a gaping hole for the 31-year-old. But as we saw in April when Van Aert finally won Paris-Roubaix, and when he reversed his misfortunes of 2024 in the Vuelta a España, winning two stages and the points classification, one can never count out Wout.

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Van Aert doesn’t have a long history at the Road Worlds, since he focused on cyclo-cross for the first half of his career, but since 2020, he’s been second twice: in 2020, when Julian Alaphilippe got away solo, and again in Glasgow in 2023.

The dynamics of the Belgian team have hampered Van Aert’s efforts to win Worlds, with the rise of his younger compatriot Remco Evenepoel causing consternation for Van Aert.

After a “total flop” at their home Worlds in 2021, Evenepoel said he had the legs to win and had asked the team coaches for the chance but was turned down. The fractures in the team lit up the Belgian media for months, but the next year, the two had come to an accord, and Evenepoel soloed to victory in the 2022 Worlds in Wollongong.

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The Glasgow Worlds in 2023 was Van Aert’s closest shot at the rainbow bands. When Mathieu van der Poel attacked, Van Aert was in the right place, had timed everything perfectly, but just didn’t have the power to match the Dutchman. Even as Van der Poel crashed on the final lap and had to finish with a broken shoe, Van Aert had already lost over a minute and had to settle for silver.

Then, Tadej Pogačar came along and swept up the last two rainbow jerseys.

The dynamic will be quite different since Pogačar won’t be racing in Montreal, having sadly crashed in the Vuelta and ended his season due to his injuries. It will be up to the Belgian sports directors to decide who is the better bet for Belgium on Mont-Royal, as the pair have not gone head-to-head in the Grand Prix de Montréal.

Van Aert was second to Pogačar there in 2022, and Evenepoel’s best result was fifth this weekend behind Isaac del Toro.

There are only 12 local circuits in Worlds after a 112-kilometre approach from Brossard, compared with the 16 ascents of Mont-Royal that come in the GP, so that swings the race into Van Aert’s favour.

That, coupled with his sparkling form at the Vuelta and the confidence he gained by breaking his Paris-Roubaix duck, could point to 2026 as the year of Wout van Aert finally winning Worlds.

Demi Vollering (Netherlands)

For a rider who has won the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Vuelta Femenina, European Championships and most of the top one-day Classics, Demi Vollering hasn’t had much luck when it comes to the Road World Championships.

The strength of the Dutch women’s team meant Vollering ended up as a back-up plan rather than the go-to rider. She didn’t make her debut until 2019, when Annemiek van Vleuten and Anna van der Breggen went 1-2.

In 2020, those two reversed places on the podium. In 2021, it was Marianne Vos who sprinted to silver behind Elisa Balsamo.

When Vollering was set to lead the Dutch team in Australia in 2022, she tested positive for COVID-19 and did not start. Luckily for the Netherlands, Van Vleuten still won despite racing with a fractured elbow.

Then, in 2023, Vollering was the Netherlands’ top rider and made all of the right moves, but didn’t react as Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) disappeared up the road in Glasgow. She managed to chase down Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Denmark) at the line but had to settle for silver. Had she not been trade teammates with Kopecky that year, one has to wonder if the outcome would have been different.

In the rainy Zürich Worlds the following year, Vollering again made the winning breakaway but didn’t have the sprint to go up against Kopecky and finished fifth.

In 2025, a suitably mountainous Worlds in Kigali could have been one for Vollering, but the Dutch team stalled in the pursuit of the breakaway because they had Riejanne Markus in the move, and Vollering ended up seventh.

This year, Vollering has had a nearly perfect season, winning Omloop Nieuwsblad, the Tour of Flanders, Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France and, at the start of the year, the Volta Valenciana.

Now, as the senior member of the Dutch team for Worlds, Vollering should have the full support of the orange team and her best chance yet to finally claim the rainbow jerseys on the uphill finish on Mont-Royal.

Michael Matthews (Australia)

Michael Matthews has come frustratingly close to a world title in the men’s road race but, as a past winner of the Grand Prix de Montréal, he could have his best chance in years this September.

Technically, Matthews is a two-time world champion in the Mixed Relay after Australia’s winning performances in 2024 and 2025, and he won the now-defunct team time trial with Sunweb in 2017, but having a rainbow jersey to wear all year long is a much different honour.

The Australian’s near-misses include a heartbreaking Richmond Worlds in 2015 where Peter Sagan (Slovakia) got away on the final 23rd Street climb and left Matthews wondering ‘what if’ when he won the reduced sprint for second place.

In the sprinters’ Worlds in Doha the next year, Matthews had a strong team that put him into the winning split, but he got boxed in during the sprint and landed off the podium behind Sagan, Mark Cavendish (Great Britain) and Tom Boonen (Belgium).

After a series of minor placings, Matthews came into his home Worlds in Wollongong as the country’s best hope, but Evenepoel soloed away, and Matthews finished third behind Christophe Laporte (France). Since then, he had a life-threatening pulmonary embolism last year, and broke both of his arms in a training crash earlier this year.

Matthews showed a spark of form in the GP de Québec after finishing a solid Tour de France where he went into the breakaway on five different stages. Although he’s a definite dark horse for a world title, there will be no other rider on the elite men’s road race start line with more top-10s at Worlds.

Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy)

Like Matthews, Elisa Longo Borghini will head into the elite women’s road race in Montreal with the most top-10s of any active rider who hasn’t yet won with seven.

The Italian finished third three times – in 2012 behind Vos, in 2020 behind Van der Breggen and in 2024 behind Kopecky.

Like Van Aert and Vollering, at times she has been in a supporting role, racing selflessly for Elisa Balsamo in 2021 – but her lack of a rainbow jersey mostly comes down to a long period of utter dominance by the Dutch women’s team.

Longo Borghini is such a strong and aggressive rider that she is often marked out of winning moves. She might not have the flat-line speed of Kopecky or be able to match Vollering on longer climbs, but Mont-Royal falls perfectly in the Italian’s strengths.

The 34-year-old leads a young team in this year’s Worlds and is coming off an evergreen season with wins in the UAE Tour overall, a stage there and in the Giro and Tour de Suisse and third overall in the Tour de France.

The one thing that is an advantage for Longo Borghini in Worlds compared with the rest of the season is the loyalty and selflessness of the Italian team, who always seem to rise to the occasion.

Stefan Küng (Switzerland)

Switzerland’s Stefan Küng has rarely finished outside the top 10 in any time trial, and even beat the likes of Filippo Ganna (Italy) and Evenepoel in the European Championships time trial in 2021, but he’s come heartbreakingly short in the World Championships so far.

But after a brilliant stage 18 time trial victory in the Vuelta a España, that could all change this weekend as Küng goes into the race as one of the top favourites for the elite men’s time trial.

In 2015, Küng was part of the BMC team’s world title in the team time trial and powered the Swiss team to back-to-back titles in the mixed relay TTT in 2021 and 2022, but individual success has so far eluded him.

In 2019, he was part of the winning move in a miserable, cold and wet Worlds road race in Yorkshire and landed a bronze medal behind Mads Pedersen (Denmark).

His closest call came in the time trial in Wollongong, where he beat Evenepoel but finished just three seconds shy of Tobias Foss (Norway), who was already occupying the hot seat. Küng led at both of the time checks but faded ever so slightly compared with Foss in the final leg.

With a third place in Imola in 2020 behind Ganna and Van Aert, this year could be the moment when Küng completes his podium collection in Montreal.

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland)

Much like Matthews and Longo Borghini, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney has a long history with the World Championships, having started the elite women’s road race for 13 years in a row but never landing that coveted rainbow jersey.

Niewiadoma’s attacking style often puts her in contention for the victory at Worlds, but so far, she has not been able to find the right moment to translate her talent into the gold medal.

For years, she and the rest of the peloton have been at the mercy of the dominant Dutch team, and Poland has not had the depth to match them. That’s left her isolated against stronger teams most years.

Niewiadoma attacked numerous times in the 2021 Worlds in Flanders but Italy stuck to their plan, having Longo Borghini lead out Elisa Balsamo, who handily beat Vos. Niewiadoma won the sprint for third, but one wonders where she could have ended up if she’d saved some matches for the sprint.

Like Longo Borghini, she’s strong enough to be a danger in any breakaway but not often quick enough to match the likes of Kopecky in a sprint. For Niewiadoma to win in Montreal, she will need a whole lot of luck, perfect timing and sparkling form to do what she needs to: get away solo.

It’s well within her capabilities, as witnessed by her 2019 victory in the Amstel Gold Race, where she not only distanced Marianne Vos on the Cauberg, but also held off a pursuit from Van Vleuten that fell just metres short.

Poland also has a strong team for Montreal, with climber Dominika Włodarczyk, and the irrepressible Marta Lach her top allies.

At 31, and with a Tour de France victory on her palmarès, Niewiadoma is getting stronger and, perhaps more importantly, racing smarter than ever before, and 2026 could be her year to shine at Worlds.

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