The Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec et de Montréal are back after a two year pandemic hiatus, with the two Canadian WorldTour races perfect stepping stones to this year’s Road World Championships.
The seven-day trip to Canada is usually a long haul loop for the European-based peloton but this year the two days of hilly circuit racing in Quebec on Friday and then Montreal on Sunday give some of the favourites for the rainbow jersey in Wollongong a perfect hit out before flying further west around the globe to Australia.
Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost), Michael Matthews (BikeExchange-Jayco) and a number of their WorldTour team and national squad teammates have all opted to soften the blow of jet lag by selecting the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec et de Montréal as their final race before the World Championships in Wollongong. That has given the two races more prestige and a far better field than the Tour of Britain or other one-day races in Europe.
The Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec et de Montréal are both held on twisting and hilly circuits, much like that of Wollongong and so offer a final chance for riders to test their form, study their rivals and take moral-boosting victories. For the teams fighting WorldTour relegation, the two one-day races also offer valuable ranking points, while for Canada it will be a celebration of a successful summer of cycling that included local resident Hugo Houle’s moving Tour de France stage victory.
Each race sees riders tackle multiple laps of a circuit worthy of the World Championships – literally in the case of Montreal which inspired Eddy Merckx’s triumph in 1974.
Riders gathered in Québec on Tuesday. The racing gets underway on Friday with the 201.6km Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, which takes in 16 laps of a 12.6km circuit that winds through the Parc des Champs de Bataille on the banks of the mighty Saint Lawrence river.
Each circuit features the short climbs of the Côte de la Potasse and the Montée de la Fabrique before a drag of more than 1 kilometre to the finish line on the Grande Allée. The sheer volume of climbing through the race’s 201km – almost 3,000 metres in total – is enough to soften the punch of all but the very strongest riders on the final lap and produce a finely balanced finale.
It is perfectly tailored for riders like Van Aert, Matthews and Sagan. Those latter two have both won here twice and it would not be…
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