Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal: Brandon McNulty and Tadej Pogačar finish one-two in UAE Team Emirates domination at WorldTour race

Pogačar launched a first brutal attack with four Montréal circuits to go, to make it a group of four that included teammate McNulty, Lidl-Trek’s Quinn Simmons and Intermarché-Wanty’s Louis Barré. Four went down to two for the last two laps as UAE Team Emirates controlled the race the rest of the way.

Both UAE riders last won GC titles at stage races, McNulty taking the title at Tour de Pologne in August and Pogačar winning his fourth Tour de France in July. Both race two days ago at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, both outside the top 25.

“When you go one-two with a teammate, but when he’s World Champion and obviously the best guy in the world, it’s super special. That’s one of the most memorable days of my career so far,” McNulty said about his victory to broadcasters.

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“We made this move on the climb, and then it ended up a group of four, and then he went [on the attack]. Then I was able to come across, and he waited for me, and he was kind enough to give me the win. So in the final, he decided to give it [the win] to me. So I’m really thankful for that. It was a super fun day.”

Simmons had been on the initial late attack with the UAE duo, but could not keep up the pace when Pogačar launched a second attack.

“This is one of the hardest one-day races in the world. And to be honest, I thought I was here to support Skelly [Mattias Skjelmose]. I didn’t expect to even make it to the finish today. So yeah, we got killed a bit by UAE,” Simmons said at the finish.

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“Congrats to them, and it’s pretty cool that two Americans are on the podium. And it’s my best result in a WorldTour one-day. So to be on the podium, doing it in the national colours, it’s been a super result. It’s one step forward for me.”

A general view of the peloton passing on one of 17 laps through Montréal (Image credit: Getty Images)

The 209.1-kilometre race would be a test of attrition with 17 laps of a 12.3km course, which was updated for 2025, a preview for the UCI Road World Championships next September.

Each clockwise lap included 269 metres of elevation across three short climbs, a total of 4,573 metres of climbing. The Côte Camillien-Houde (1.8km at 8%) and Côte de la Polytechnique (780m at 6%, including a 200m portion of 11%) appeared on the opening 6.5km of the circuit, followed by Pagnuelo (534 metres at 7.5%). The final ascent left just under three kilometres to the finish line.

There was a split in the peloton after the opening climb with sunshine spilling down on proceedings, huge crowds lining the course.

After the first circuit, a breakaway of seven had moved away – Ineos Grenadiers’ US pair AJ August and Artem Shmidt, Dutch riders Pascal Eenkhoorn (Soudal-QuickStep) and Frank van den Broek (Picnic-PostNL), two Danes Jørgen Nordhagen (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Embret Svestad-Bårdseng (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) and the lone Frenchmen Victor Lafay (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), who was the oldest in the group at 29.

The group held a margin of close to one minute as they paraded around the capital of the Canadian provence. The young Ineos riders worked at the front to hold the pace across a majority of the terrain, while another group of nine formed behind in the chase.

With 120km to go, only 21 seconds separated the leaders from the chasers – EF Education-EasyPost duo Alex Baudin and Harry Sweeny, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe pair of Laurence Pithie and Jan Tratnik, Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla), Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Lewis Askey (Groupama-FDJ), Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility) and Mauris Mayrhofer (Tudor Pro Cycling).

With 114km to go, the two groups had merged and now 16 riders pressed on with eight laps still ahead. In the peloton behind, world champion and two-time GP Montréal winnerTadej Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG took on nutrition at the feed zone, looking to be in no hurry to catch the front group, yet.

Four kilometres on, Eenkhoorn bumped his front wheel with the rider he was following in the break, and flipped over his handlebars. He remounted but was in no hurry to rejoin his original group, which now opened the gap to 1:20.

As each lap was completed, riders continued to dismount at the finish and more than a dozen had called it a day at the mid-point of the race including Canadian Guillaume Boivin (Israel-Premier Tech), Luke Lamperti (Soudal-QuickStep) and Ruben Guerreiro (Movistar). Eenkhoorn would join the list of DNF riders after his crash.

As the final 100km began, UAE Team Emirates went to the front to set the pace of the peloton, holding the gap to one minute.

The next riders to drop from the break slid off the back, Pithie, Shmidt and then Sweeny, left 12 out front. As they faded at the back, August pushed the pace at the front, perhaps knowing the peloton had closed to within 30 seconds.

Across another couple of laps, with 83.5km to race, just six riders remained in the front group – August, Schmid, Tratnik, Baudin, Dversnes and Svestad-Bårdseng, their margin up to 42 seconds.

More names added to the spectator list with DNFs included Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty).

As the pace by UAE brought back the breakaway, that speed also began to decimate the peloton, now reduced to less than 45 riders. With 69km to go, UAE remained at the front but this time it was the front of the race itself, all the breakaway riders conquered.

Tucked in the remnants of the peloton with Pogačar were Lidl-Trek’s Quinn Simmons as well as all three riders on the podium at Friday’s Grand Prix de Québec – winner Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor Pro Cycling), second-placed Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates XRG) and third-placed Alberto Bettiol (XDS Astana).

With five laps and 61km to go, another pass of Côte Camillien-Houde saw Alaphilippe drop off the back along with Schmid and Paul Lapeira (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale). They worked together with Van den Broeck and Anthon Charmig (XDS Astana) to form a solid chase group.

Pogačar had three riders driving the race for him as the fourth-to-last lap began, Sivakov, Brandon McNulty and Adam Yates, with Jhonatan Narváez sitting behind his team leader. Now less than 20 riders remained in the pulverised peloton. Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious) was seen on TV cameras rising from his saddle and bouncing his bike, apparently trying to unlock his chain from getting stuck in the small ring. He slowed from the lead group and had to make a bike change.

With 35.4km, Pogačar launched an attack on the 14th pass of the Camillien-Houde climb. Across the summit and on the descent, McNulty rejoined along with Simmons and young French rider Louis Barré (Intermarché-Wanty).

Brandon McNulty and Tadej Pogačar ride together at the front of the race (Image credit: Getty Images)

It was about the same place where the Slovenian attacked last year to win in Montréal, he accelerated again with 24km to go and struck out alone. Simmons then took on a charge, followed by McNulty, and went into chase mode. Barré was dropped in the commotion. The reduced peloton was down 55 seconds, and on that penultimate climb of Camillien-Houde, Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) moved to the front.

Pogačar moved away, with a quick glance behind on the descent of the big climb, perhaps to sense only his teammate McNulty was 17 seconds back, and the American rejoined his teammate with a huge effort. Meanwhile, Simmons had been dropped and was another 18 seconds down with 16km to race.

Across the next few miles the UAE duo joined forces for a mighty one-two punch to play out on the bell lap.