Remco Evenepoel says Mathieu van der Poel has a strong chance of winning Sunday’s men’s road race at the World Championships in Montréal. Evenepoel accepts his own favourite status but says France should make the race hard for Paul Seixas, rather than leaving Belgium to carry it.
“Mathieu is one of the sport’s super-talents. On a super day with golden legs, he can ride everyone and everything to pieces here,” Evenepoel said in a pre-race interview with Het Nieuwsblad. Evenepoel gave Van der Poel much the same chance on this course as at the Worlds in Zurich, where the Dutchman finished third. Van der Poel won the world road title in Scotland in 2023.
The Olympic champion isn’t shying away from his own favourite status, though: “Am I the top favourite? I’ll answer ‘yes’.” Evenepoel has shown superb form coming into the road race with a win at the Grand Prix de Québec on September 11 before finishing fifth in Montréal two days later and then adding the World time trial title, his fourth consecutive win in that race.
France’s role on the Montréal circuit
France has named Seixas its leader. Evenepoel said he can take a win in a small group backing his sprint with Wout van Aert capable of doing so in a slightly larger one. Seixas will have to do it solo as was shown in the GP de Montréal a couple of weeks ago where he was easily beaten by Isaac del Toro.
“That puts the pressure on France. We can use that. We certainly don’t have to work all the time,” Evenepoel said.
Evenepoel called Seixas a good sprinter, but said neither Seixas nor Del Toro would want a sprint against him: “Paul and Isaac Del Toro will not want to go to the sprint with me, just as I don’t want to go to the line with Van der Poel.”
Evenepoel won in Québec by beating Giulio Ciccone in a two-up sprint, a feet that is impressive to do as Ciccone is known for being one of the fastest climbers in the sport winning multiple races by sprinting from reduced groups. He said his sprint has improved over the past two years, giving him more confidence to wait for the finish if he cannot drop his rivals.
Sunday’s 273.7km race starts in Brossard at 09:00 local time before riders take on 12 laps of the Mount Royal circuit. The route has 3,803 metres of climbing, including the Voie Camillien-Houde and Chemin de la Polytechnique, and finishes on the rising Avenue du Parc.
You can explore the Worlds route, and compare it to the last 15 years of Worlds routes on Race Atlas’s interactive map.
Belgium are likely to take some control, probably in the earlier stages to keep the pace relatively high and stop any early breaks going too far up the road. Once onto the circuit, though, it will be almost every man for themselves with the constant saw-tooth style profile means it will be difficult to control and long range attacks are very likely, with Evenepoel almost certain to be involved from very early on.
