In Sunday’s 14th edition of Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, the man in the rainbow jersey, Tadej Pogačar, could have taken a hat trick of wins, but instead showed great class in gifting the victory to American teammate Brandon McNulty. UAE-Emirates has earned 14 of 34 2025 WorldTour rounds so far. Hugo Houle was the top Canadian in 45th.
The Course
The Montréal race is a little longer and more climb-y than the Québec one. The riders had 17 laps of 12.3 km for a total of 209.1 km. Each lap contained the Côte Camilien-Houde climb up Mont Royal, 2.3 km of 6.8 percent.
UAE-Emirates had won the last three editions courtesy of Tadej Pogačar and Adam Yates.
The Canadian contingent was Michael Leonard, Guillaume Boivin and Hugo Houle, Quentin Cowan, Jérôme Gauthier, Léonard Peloquin, Félix Bouchard, Samuel Couture, Philippe Jacob and Félix Hamel.
Camillien-Houde 1 produced a breakaway septet containing Americans, Norwegian and Dutch duos but no Canadians. UAE-Emirates and Tudor invested energy at the front of the peloton to keep the seven in check.
A chase slightly bigger than the escape group loped away while the contest was still in its first half, the two merging with 120 km to go. At the midway point of the race, 15 riders held 1:15 over the peloton.
Soon after the course entered its latter half, the breakaway began to shed riders as UAE-Emirates yanked it closer. On Lap 12’s trip up Camillien-Houde, with 71 km remaining, the last of the fugitives came to heel. Julian Alaphillipe lost contact on the next lap–there would be no Quebec-Montréal double for the French buccaneer. Runner-up in 2022, Wout van Aert climbed off his bicycle.
Twenty-five fellows headed into the final three laps. McNulty and Quinn “American Tryer” Simmons stole away on Camillien-Houde and Pogačar bridged over with Louis Barré. After entering the final two circuits with a 45 second lead, the world champion bolted. When he heard the bell, the Slovenian had Tour de Poland victor McNulty for company.
Pogačar did all the pulling. The teammates had time for a cheerful chat with just over two kilometers to race. Just before the line they were arm in arm and then the world champion sat up, pointed to McNulty and celebrated the one-two.
The next and penultimate round of the 2025 UCI World Tour is Il Lombardia on October…
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