The World Championships are upon us! The week of racing starts with the time trials on Sunday, with the first woman rolling off the ramp at 9:00 EDT / 15:00 CEST. The list of competitors for that first rainbow jersey includes defending champ Marlen Reusser representing Switzerland, Tour winner Demi Vollering for the Netherlands, Vuelta winner Paula Blasi for Spain, and more.
It’s going to be a good one!
Abby Mickey | Senior Editor
First things first: Missing from the World Championships …
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Marianne Vos, Anna van der Breggen, and Urška Zigart are all out of the World Championships for various reasons. For Ferrand-Prévot and Van der Breggen, the exact reasoning has not been made public, but both former champions pulled out of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift before the end of the race and haven’t been seen since. According to their teams, they both left the race due to illness.
Visma-Lease a Bike announced last week that Ferrand-Prévot will not race again in 2026, but SD Worx-Protime and Van der Breggen have kept the condition of their star under wraps. Which is fine. It’s none of our business, but it is a bummer for the Dutch and French teams not to have them lining up at their top (or even close to their top) form.
As for Vos, the multi-time world champion is not done with the 2026 season. She has only lined up once since the Tour, at GP Bolle p/b Van Eyck Sport-Oetigen, a national-level criterium where she finished fifth and Marie Schreiber took the win. She is set to race the Gravel World Championships in Nannup in October, and she’s said publicly that she’s really excited about it.
Urška Zigart was among a handful of riders who took tumbles at the Faun Tour last week, along with Mischa Bredewold, who was supposed to represent the Netherlands at the Worlds. Both riders sustained lasting injuries and will not travel to Canada. Zigart, who would have led the Slovenian team, re-fractured her jaw in the crash after she’d already sustained a jaw fracture at the Tour de Suisse earlier in the year.
It’s been a rollercoaster season for Zigart, who finished sixth overall at the Vuelta and eighth overall at the Giro only to fracture her jaw at the Tour de Suisse, come back in time for the Tour, and then end her season early with a crash at the Faun Tour.
Racing continues…
At the World Championships in Montreal!
Schedule:
Elite Women’s ITT – Sept. 20 @ 9:00 EDT
U23 Women’s ITT – Sept. 21 @ 9:00 EDT
Junior Women’s ITT – Sept. 22 @ 15:15 EDT
Mixed Relay – Sept. 22 @ 8:30 EDT
U23 Women’s RR – Sept. 22 @ 9:00 EDT
Junior Women’s RR – Sept. 25 @ 14:15 EDT
Elite Women’s RR – Sept. 26 @ 9:00 EDT
I will write a full, separate preview for the women’s elite road race, and will detail the U23 and junior road races plus some riders to watch in next week’s newsletter. For now, let’s focus a bit on the time trials.
Women’s Elite ITT
Distance: 39.2 km, 220 m elevation gain
There are a lot of bridges, and it has been relatively windy up in Montreal lately. The wind as of now is minimal, but the stretch from 28.6 km to go to 26 km to go that crosses the Fleuve Saint-Laurent has a chance of crosswinds. Once they take a left turn, they’ll go into a slight tailwind for about 7 km, and within that, with 23.3 km to go, they have some technical bits as they ride around the île Notre-Dame.
With 15.5 km remaining, they cross the Fleuve Saint-Laurent again and make their way through the city streets back to the start/finish area. This section of the race includes an out-and-back with a turnaround with 6 km to go and quite a few tight turns.
You always want to see an ITT course before a race, but this one is particularly technical. A few of the top contenders are already in Montreal scoping out the tricky bits.
In addition to the twists and turns, the finish is also atop a 3.5 km stairstep climb, where the final 500 metres average 6.5%. This also means that the riders start with a slight downhill, where they will be able to pick up some momentum, but when they come into the final 3.5 km they will need to have saved some energy to really push over the climb. It isn’t one where they will be able to get a rhythm, because it includes three kicks, with some flat sections between the first and second.
This “climb” is nothing insane; it’s nothing like the climbs in Rwanda and probably won’t make a massive difference. However, every second counts and if all the energy is spent, the race could be lost here.
The favourites
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Marlen Reusser
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Zoe Bäckstedt, Demi Vollering
⭐️⭐️⭐️: Elisa Longo Borghini
⭐️⭐️: Lotte Kopecky
⭐️: Franziska Koch, Juliette Berthet, Dominika Włodarczyk
Honourable mentions: Lotte Claes, Lauretta Hanson, Vittoria Guazzini, Mie Bjørndal Ottestad, Paula Blasi
U23 ITT
Distance: 20.3 km, 145 m elevation gain
The U23 women don’t have to cross the bridges; instead, they will race a straight out-and-back route with the same start and finish as the elite women.
Riders to watch: Mackenzie Coupland (AUS), Felicity Wilson-Haffenden (AUS), Febe Jooris (BEL), Sidney Swierenga (CAN), Kylee Hanel (USA), Paula Ostiz (ESP), Viktória Chladonová (SVK), Megan Arens (NLD), Justyna Czapla (GER)
Junior ITT
Distance: 10.7 km, 91 m elevation gain
The Junior women will also race an out-and-back, but they will stick close to downtown Montreal and the start-finish. The course is still kind of technical, but is protected by buildings if there should be any wind. They race up the same finishing climb as the elite and U23 women.
Riders to watch: Liliana Edwards (USA), Maria Okrucińska (POL), Yana Decruyenaere (BEL), Maria Acuti (ITA), Alejandra Neira (ESP), Anja Grossmann (SWI)
Mixed Team Relay
Distance: 40.6 km with 290 m elevation gain (20.3 km for the men and 20.3 km for the women)
For the mixed relay, teams will be racing on the same course as the U23 women.
The favourites
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Australia, France, Switzerland
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Germany, Italy
⭐️⭐️⭐️: Netherlands
⭐️⭐️: Great Britain, Spain
⭐️: Canada
Wheel Talk podcast
Anna Shackley is back this week with Abby and Loren, plus special guest Hannah Barnes, to talk about everything from the Faun Tour to the latest transfers to the media and the changing women’s peloton.
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