The road worlds were a special day for Montreal\u2019s Guillaume Boivin. For a few reasons.<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old got away early and spent 142 km in the break. It was an amazing sight seeing him come onto his home roads ahead of the field, spending several laps up the road on the city circuits before the break was eventually reeled in.<\/p>\n
But the big question was whether he would be racing next year. Boivin doesn\u2019t have a contract with NSN Cycling for 2027.<\/p>\n
It turns out we already had our answer.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next for Boivin<\/p>\n
When asked if the race marked one of the final races of his career\u2014he\u2019s racing in Germany next weekend\u2014Boivin confirmed that his career is coming to an end.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely the last time you\u2019ll see me racing in the streets of Montreal, for sure. I\u2019m retiring at the end of the season,\u201d he said after pulling out of the worlds. \u201cI have been talking about it a bit over the last two or three weeks; it was a process to get to this point. But honestly, I think I\u2019m at a place where I\u2019m really proud of the career I\u2019ve built. I had fun, 17 years as a professional,\u201d he said. \u201cI experienced what I had to experience, and I\u2019m ready to move on to other things, which is completely fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
An unexpected call-up to the worlds<\/p>\n
Boivin wasn\u2019t originally supposed to ride the worlds. After Derek Gee-West broke his ribs at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal, Boivin went from alternate status to game on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next day, I received a call from Derek himself telling me I could take his spot in the race because he couldn\u2019t start. Even though it meant a lot of travel this week, it was a great week and I tried to appreciate today as much as possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And appreciate it he did. He rode on roads familiar to him, and in front of a home crowd.<\/p>\n
Boivin spent part of his childhood in Saguenay, but Longueuil on the South Shore is where he spent most of his life. He knows these roads well\u2013just not during the biggest one-day race of the year.<\/p>\n
A fitting way to close the chapter<\/p>\n
Boivin missed the Tour de France because of an injury, opening the door for someone else to take his place. This time, the circumstances went the other way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI missed the Tour this year, and someone else got the chance to go. Sometimes you\u2019re on a good wave and things go your way, and other times they don\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cHere, luck turned around a bit. I\u2019m still disappointed for Derek because he\u2019s at home in Canada too and couldn\u2019t experience this, but I respect his honesty immensely because he could have tried to start anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Racing through the roads where he grew up, in front of the Montreal crowd, made for a pretty fitting way to close out his final worlds.<\/p>\n
\u201cExactly, I am serene. I\u2019m not even sad\u2014I\u2019m just happy with how it went. It was perfect. Under the circumstances, it\u2019s a really beautiful way to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lon g career<\/p>\n
Boivin has plenty of results to look back on during his 17 years as a professional, but he doesn\u2019t expect those results to be what defines his career. He had some big rides, including being national road race champion three times, and a memorable 9th at Paris Roubaix.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have nice results, but I don\u2019t think people will remember me strictly for my race results. I hope I managed to share my passion for cycling, along with perseverance and resilience. Resilience was something that made me stand out and enabled me to stay professional for 17 years. I hope I helped introduce cycling to as many people as possible and inspired young riders in Quebec to have similar careers.\u201d<\/p>\n
What comes next<\/p>\n
Boivin doesn\u2019t have everything figured out just yet. He said he only made the decision to retire with 100 per cent certainty on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have plenty of ideas, but since I only made the decision 100 per cent on Monday, I don\u2019t have a firm plan yet. I\u2019m confident you\u2019ll still see me involved in cycling. We also plan to stay in Europe for a little bit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Chapeau to Boivin for a great career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The road worlds were a special day for Montreal\u2019s Guillaume Boivin. For a few reasons. The 37-year-old got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[220587,49,48,635,20826,82,11588],"class_list":["post-911907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2026-road-worlds","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-guillaume-boivin","tag-sports","tag-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}