Pavel Sivakov was supposed to be in Navarre on Sunday afternoon, racing towards Lekunberri in the Vuelta a España peloton. Instead, he found himself an ocean away in a rain-soaked Parc du Mont-Royal, riding to second place at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal. You don’t have to be adaptable to be a pro cyclist, but it helps.
The Frenchman had spent most of the summer cloistered at altitude, preparing himself to ride the Vuelta alongside Geraint Thomas, but at the last moment, Ineos Grenadiers opted not to include him in their line-up. His imminent transfer to UAE Team Emirates almost certainly informed the decision.
It was no way to say goodbye, particularly after six seasons of service, and Sivakov expressed his disappointment in an interview with L’Équipe at last month’s Deutschland Tour. “We’re just numbers, we’re pawns,” he said then. “That’s how I see it.”
It would have been understandable if Sivakov had downed tools and turned his thoughts to his new start as part of Tadej Pogačar’s guard in 2024, but he figured he might as well put his summer of hard labour to use during the final weeks of a campaign that saw a fine Giro d’Italia ended by a heavy crash. He placed fourth overall in Germany and he made the trip to Canada with a particular emphasis on the GP de Montréal.
“I was supposed to do the Vuelta, so it was hard for me to miss out on that, because I had good legs in that moment,” Sivakov said when he took a seat in the press room on Sunday afternoon. “But I accepted the situation, and I did a good Deutschland Tour. The courses in Plouay last week and Québec on Friday weren’t ideal for me, but I was super happy to be able to fight for the win today.
“I motivated myself again very quickly after I got the news. I knew I’d still have opportunities to come in these races. The efforts I was making in training for a Grand Tour were a little bit different, but I still had some good races to prepare for coming here, so I was ready.”
The rain that fell steadily over Montréal on Sunday added an extra degree of attrition to an already demanding course, where the 18 laps of the Mont-Royal circuit added up to some 4,842 metres of total climbing. Once UAE Team Emirates began paring down the peloton in earnest with three laps remaining, it became clear that Adam Yates would be the dangerman in the finale and Sivakov stayed within sight of the Briton’s rear wheel as they took the bell.
Sivakov was the only rider who could…
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