Winning a national championship jersey is a special thing. Whether you’re a junior, master or pro, it’s an honour to wear the flag for a year, in whatever discipline.
The Canadian national championship jersey is similar to what many other countries do — it’s basically wearing a flag. The French and Italian tricolore. The Belgian and Dutch kits look like a giant flag stretched across your chest.
When most amateurs win the national championship, they’ll usually wear the jersey they won on the podium. With faster turnarounds for custom jerseys, that’s changed — you might spot a junior with a custom skinsuit from their club team. But for a pro, they’ll always get a brand-new set of custom kit provided by their clothing sponsor, adorned with team logos.
For reference, there was a hot take here.
Unlike the rainbow jersey, there aren’t many strict rules for a national championship kit. The world champion’s kit has to be exactly what the UCI prescribes — down to the centimetre, including the placement of bands and logos. But for the national champ? You can do what you want. That’s not always a popular opinion. There have been times when the design wasn’t well received. Just recently, Intermarché’s German champion had his kit redesigned after fans complained the bands weren’t big enough.
The French have always been good at honouring their jersey — some teams, for years, wouldn’t even add logos to the tricolore. In fact, some French teams even extended that respect to other national champions — just look at Antoine Duchesne. Even in an era of big corporate sponsors, traditionalist teams like Groupama – FDJ carried on.
Speaking of tradition, in 2025 the Canadian national championship design went through a redesign. It’s not clear why, but it did. Opinions were split. The jersey has changed slightly over the years: before the mid-2000s it had white sleeves with red maple leaves; more recently it featured red sleeves with white leaves. But overall, it’s been a pretty consistent look for decades.
It seems, though, that many of Canada’s top pros still prefer the old (as in last year’s) design.
Former road pro turned gravel racer Ben Perry took his first elite win in 2024. He’d won as a junior and under-23, but never with the big boys. His new kit? Pretty close to the O.G. design — last year’s — with…
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