A great first day for Team Canada at the Tour de l’Abitibi Glencore – Volet Femmes on Friday with Team Canada dominating Stage 1. This is the second edition of women’s race. It has been a long-running international for men since 1971. Many riders have gone on from racing the Canadian junior stage race to big careers, including Steve Bauer, Alex Stieda and Bobby Julich.

Stage 1 recap of the Tour de l’Abitibi

Saint-Basile-le-Grand, Que’s Elodie Malois sprinted to victory on Friday’s opening stage leading a Canadian one-two finish after 85.4 km of racing around Rouyn-Noranda. Malois has been having an excellent season this year, following a strong 2025 which saw plenty of big results. The 18-year-old cyclist recently won both the national ITT and crit championships in Saint-Georges, Que.

Malois crossed the line ahead of Boucherville, Que’s Sandrine Veilleux following a bunch sprint, with
track star Eve Buczkowski (Milton Revolution Racing) taking third. In fact, Canada almost swept the top-10, taking the first eight spots.

Aggressive racing from the start

The opening stage featured several attempts to break clear, but none were able to stay away as the peloton remained largely intact throughout the day. The pace was quick from the opening kilometres. It made for a spicy race before the sprinters ultimately did their thing.

Julia Lehmann (Milton Revolution Racing) took the first Queen of the Mountain competition at the 9.1-km mark, finishing ahead of Clara Dello Sbarba of Team Quebec and Veilleux. Norway’s Sereina Snerthammer won the first intermediate sprint, while Malois took the opening bonus sprint over Canadian teammate Molly Flynn and Team Quebec’s Zoe-Alexa Veilleux.

The race remained lively in the second half, with Kazakhstan’s Aruzhan Kabdulova winning the second Queen of the Mountain climb. Flynn then took the second bonus sprint ahead of Naomi Thurman (Monarch Racing) and Kabdulova.

The finale

Everything came down to the final dash to the line, where Malois proved the quickest.

“We’re very proud of our race,” Malois said. “We worked together from start to finish, and this result gives us a lot of confidence for the rest of the Tour.”

Malois leads, followed by Veilleux and with Flynn’s bonus sprints, sits in third.

Stage 2 is 100 km in Rouyn-Noranda. The race wraps up on Sunday with an ITT. Then, the junior men’s race will take place.