Starting Sunday, Demi Vollering, Marlen Reusser, Kasia Niewiadoma and more go head to head in Montréal.
Demi Vollering won the European road championships last Autumn but is yet to win a world title (Photo: Billy Ceusters/Getty Images) (Photo: Billy Ceusters)
Published September 20, 2026 04:03AM
It’s already been a dream season for Demi Vollering but it could become even better if everything goes to plan for her in Montréal.
The Dutch star won her second Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift title in early August, adding to wins in the Giro d’Italia Women, the Tour of Flanders, Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and others this year. She’s the clear favorite for the road world championships, although she’s never won a world title before and has competed just once since her Tour success.
Can she do it? She’ll try, for sure, but is up against a host of big rivals in her worlds campaign.
First off is the elite women’s time trial on Sunday which, in a rare occurrence, is run off over exactly the same distance as the elite men.
That’s a 39.2km course in and around the city and is mainly flat and very fast. There is just 220 meters of elevation over the distance, widening the list of contenders and perhaps making Vollering’s task a little more complicated.
Her key rival will almost certainly be to be Marlen Reusser, the Swiss rider who won last year’s title and who also picked up two silver medals and once bronze in previous editions.
Reusser is, on paper at least, the best time trialist in cycling and could well defend her title. However much will depend on how her preparation has been after the Tour, where she crashed on the final stage and tumbled down the GC from third overall to 14th. She’s raced just once since then, winning the Chrono Féminin de Gatineau earlier this week.
She won the stage 4 TT at the Tour and led the race for three days.
Also likely to challenge for medals are Zoe Bäckstedt (Great Britain), Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy), Kristen Faulkner (USA) and Lotte Kopecky (Belgium).
The course is a very technical one with plenty of turns acting to test the bike handling abilities of the riders.
See more details about the route here.
Niewiadoma dreams big once more
How ever the TT goes for Vollering, she should be the favorite for the road race. Her dominance has been so complete this year that she will approach the hilly course with confidence, likely thinking back to her ambush of the-then race leader Kasia Niewiadoma on the penultimate day of the Tour.
That too was on a course with short, steep climbs and she disposed of all of her rivals. On that basis, Vollering will know that she can take any rider on.
However Niewiadoma has defeated Vollering in the past on similar ascents, dropping her to win Flèche Wallonne in 2024.
The Polish rider hasn’t competed since the Tour but knows this year’s route suits her very well. It is perhaps the ideal opportunity for her to improve on her third place of 2021.
Reusser, too, will fancy her chances. She rode strongly in the Tour until and while things unravelled slightly on Mont Ventoux, she is a strong and tactically astute rider. She was fourth in the 2023 worlds and, at 35, knows she must seize her opportunity now.
Ditto for Elisa Longo Borghini, third overall at the Tour. She’s a plucky, determined competitor with a proven climbing ability and a tactical instinct which could play off well, particularly if Vollering gets bogged down in battles with other riders.
Kim le Court is also a big danger; she is very good on terrain which fits her explosive style and Montréal seems perfect in that regard. Winning the GC and a stage in the Tour of Britain a boost, although crashing out of the Classic Lorient Agglomération was a setback.
Attention will be paid too to double champion Lotte Kopecky, who triumphed in 2023 and 2024. She hasn’t been at her best since and pulled out of the Tour of Britain due to illness, but returned to a past practice of competing against junior men as part of her buildup for Canada.
Other big threats include Paula Blasi (Spain), defending champion Magdeleine Vallières, who will be psyched to be racing on home soil, Cédrine Kerbaol and Juliette Berthet (France), Puck Pieterse (Netherlands), Liane Lippert and Antonia Niedermaier (Germany).
A tough course awaits
The women’s race is 180.4km and will rack up 2,570 meters of altitude gain. This climbing is concentrated into the second half of the race, with the opening 64km largely flat. From there the riders will tackle eight laps of the difficult Mont Real circuit, which includes ascents of the steep 1.7km Voie Camillien-Houde climb.
The final ascent comes 11km from the finish line, with it plus the subsequent descent making for a thrilling finale.