In a world road championships marked by the absence of Tadej Pogacar, Tom Pidcock and Oscar Onley will lead British hopes in the men’s elite road race on Sunday. But for either to claim the rainbow jersey, they must beat a determined Remco Evenepoel, a man on a mission in Montreal.

Pogacar is recovering after a heavy crash in the Vuelta a España and Pidcock and Onley are among a large group of contenders, headed by Paul Seixas of France, the Belgian Evenepoel and Isaac del Toro of Mexico, all seeking to capitalise on the Slovenian’s absence. 

Evenepoel, the first rider to win four consecutive world time trial titles, is hoping to become the first rider to hold all four world and Olympic road and time trial titles simultaneously.

The Belgian called his preparation to the week in Montreal “Project Canada” and knows that in Pogacar’s absence it represents a career-defining opportunity.

Over a gruelling 273.7km course that includes almost 4,000m of climbing, Pidcock, second to Pogacar in the similarly lengthy Milan-Sanremo in March, is expected to shine.

Buoyed by a recent win in the world mountain bike championships and success in Italian race, GP Industria & Artigianato, the double Olympic gold medalist hopes to become the third British rider, after Tom Simpson and Mark Cavendish, to win the rainbow jersey.

“I’m not the top favourite,” Pidcock said. “I think it’s quite an open race, but it’s my best shot so far.”

Pidcock has credited the upsurge in his career fortunes, including this summer’s best-ever ninth place finish in the Tour de France, with his departure from Ineos Grenadiers — now, as Netcompany Ineos, home to Onley — in late 2024.

“I can say with confidence that it was probably the best decision I’ve ever made in my career,” he said this week.

Onley, meanwhile, has been backed to perform by the 2018 Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas, who is now Netcompany Ineos’s director of racing.

“He’s a great rider,” Thomas said of the Scot. “He’s a super talent, with an attitude that I can relate to. He’s mentally strong, he wants to perform and he’s desperate to do that. He puts a lot of pressure on himself. I just don’t want to see him suffering from putting extra pressure on himself.”  

Onley finished fourth in the 2025 Tour de France and won the best young rider classification at this year’s Vuelta, but fell out of the overall top five after losing ground on the final mountain stage.

British hopes in the women’s road race will be led by Zoe Backstedt, a silver medallist in the elite women’s time trial last weekend. The Welsh rider’s career was founded, like Thomas, on her time with Cardiff cycling club the Maindy Flyers. Fifth in this year’s Tour of Flanders and a key protagonist in the final decisive stage of this year’s Tour de France Femmes, that featured repeated climbs of the Col d’Eze, the 22-year-old has proven her ability to step up.

Backstedt will compete against a strong field including the Tour de France Femmes champion Demi Vollering (Netherlands), Kasia Niewiadoma (Poland), the Tour of Britain winner Kim Le Court (Mauritius), and the former world champion Lotte Kopecky (Belgium).

Marlen Reusser of Switzerland, who successfully defended her world time trial title last weekend, Italian national champion, Elisa Longo Borghini, and Spanish climber, Paula Blasi, winner of the 2026 Vuelta Feminina, add further depth to the peloton.

“It’s going to be a hard course,” Backstedt said of the 180km route in Montreal, which includes almost three thousand metres of climbing. “But I think with the team that we’ve got coming, we will make it a really hard race.”

The week of racing in Canada has also been clouded by the ongoing debate over rider safety. Two years after the death of Muriel Furrer in the 2024 UCI world road championships, Matt Brennan, winner of five stages in the recent Vuelta, has criticised the lack of response within cycling to the death of Fin Tarling while racing in Portugal in August.

“There should be an independent organisation that holds the (race) organisations, the UCI and everything accountable to some very strict rules that makes sure the safety of the riders is held as a priority,” Brennan told the BBC. “It’s unbelievable, because you’ve lost a friend and when nothing changes it is really shocking.”

But after meeting in Montreal, the UCI’s management committee failed to make any reference to recent lapses in race safety, one of which led to Tarling’s fatal collision. 

Improved barriers, GPS tracking, and equipment regulation were all cited by the UCI’s management committee as essential safety measures, yet there was no mention of the security issues that have repeatedly allowed cars on to race courses.

The circumstances of Tarling’s death are the subject of an investigation by the Portuguese Public Prosecutor’s Office.