A half-century on, cycling’s world championship returns to Montreal

By IAN AUSTEN

Montreal didn’t host any World Cup matches this summer. But during the coming week, fans of another sport centered in Europe will be keeping their eyes on the city as it hosts cycling’s UCI Road World Championships.

For casual spectators, the Tour de France has come to define bike racing. But aside from the yellow jersey worn by that race’s winner, there’s no piece of clothing as coveted in cycling as the white jersey with a rainbow band of colors awarded to world champions.

At Worlds, riders represent their countries — not commercially sponsored teams, as in the Tour de France. As a result, it has far more teams: 100 countries, compared with 23 teams at this year’s Tour de France. Between the road races, time trials (races against the clock) and the women’s and men’s events, about 1,000 of the world’s top cyclists have come to town.

They won’t be riding around a suburban office park, either. The highlight of the road racing circuit will be multiple ascents of Voie Camillien-Houde up Mount Royal, as at the last Worlds in Montreal, in 1974, and at the 1976 Olympics. The Champlain Bridge will be partly closed as riders cross over from the south shore of the St. Lawrence River onto the island of Montreal.

And, yes, the traffic disruptions should be similarly epic.

The surrounding show will also be up to Tour de France standards. At the base of Mount Royal on Thursday, work crews were busy making final touches on the grandstands and elaborate VIP hospitality tents at the finish line.

For me from 1992 until 2018, July often meant packing a large suitcase and heading off to report from the Tour de France.

Back then, readers often asked me where to go in France to watch the Tour. If they lived in eastern Canada, I sometimes suggested traveling to Montreal or Quebec City.

Since 2010, Montreal and Quebec City have hosted the only two races in North America on the International Cycling Union’s World Tour, which includes the Tour de France. The biggest teams, based on a points ranking, are required by the governing body, which is known by its French initials UCI, to ride all World Tour events. And there’s an incentive to come to Canada: World Tour races are rich in the UCI ranking points that teams need to ensure automatic entry in the Tour de France and that largely determine riders’ salaries.

The Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec and Montréal, which were held this month, allow fans a more intimate experience. And because they are based around laps of a circuit — like the Worlds road races — spectators get to see the race action multiple times and from different points.

(Most of the Worlds racing will be free for the viewing. But unlike nearly all other major bike races, sitting at the finish line costs up to 277.99 Canadian dollars. Most of those tickets were sold out as of Friday.)

In 1974 in Montreal, the professional men’s road race — there was a distinction with amateurs then — was won by Eddy Merckx. It was the third and final time he pulled on the world champion’s jersey. His overall record of wins remains unmatched.

This year, Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia had been the overwhelming favorite to win in Montreal. He won his fifth Tour de France in July and was touted by Merckx as the only rider capable of matching his record. But injuries from a crash in late August have sidelined him and cracked the men’s road race wide open.