Brandon McNulty could pack the form and Montréal pedigree to end Team USA’s 33-year world championship men’s rainbow jersey drought.
McNulty, fourth in Sunday’s time trial, is the Montréal world’s ultimate outsider. (Photo: Getty Images)
Updated September 21, 2026 11:50AM
Quinn Simmons might pack the hype, but Brandon McNulty could be the man who quietly ends the longest drought in American cycling.
The United States will bring one of its strongest elite men’s teams in decades into Sunday’s road race at the UCI Road World Championships.
Simmons is the obvious leader after his breakthrough season and aggressive showing in the Canadian classics, but McNulty offers something no other American can match.
He has already won on these roads.
McNulty won the 2025 Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal after Tadej Pogačar attacked from the elite selection and then waited for his UAE Emirates XRG teammate. Pogačar effectively handed him the victory, but McNulty still had to be strong enough to follow the world champion when the race exploded.
One year later, McNulty proved it was no fluke.
The 28-year-old returned to Montréal this month and finished third behind UAE teammate Isaac del Toro and French teenager Paul Seixas.
McNulty then kicked off the Montréal worlds with fourth in Sunday’s elite men’s time trial, missing the bronze medal by only 12 seconds.
“I think it showed the work was paying off and hopefully I can keep getting better,” McNulty said after averaging 50.79 kph over the 39.2km course.
The result confirmed that McNulty has arrived at worlds in top condition, and strengthened the case that Team USA can play multiple cards on Sunday.
McNulty as the ultimate worlds outsider
Sunday’s 273km road race is an old-school suffer-fest that begins in Brossard before reaching Montréal for 12 punishing laps around Mount Royal.
The repeated climbs and more than 3,700m should produce a race of attrition, exactly the sort of race when McNulty’s climbing ability, time trial power, and resistance after six hours could become decisive.
“We have our work cut out, but I think we have a good team to race aggressively,” McNulty told Cycling Weekly on Sunday.
“There are a ton of strong guys that I don’t think we’ve ever really beaten before, so it’s going to be hard,” he said. “But I think we have numbers to at least play our cards well.”
McNulty gives the United States an extra card to play behind Simmons, who’s being billed as the team’s leader among equals.
Simmons races as loud as his wild looks. He isn’t afraid to attack and buries himself in the pedals in “Ricky Bobby” style. A junior road world champion in 2019, Simmons was ninth in 2024 in Zurich, so he can go the worlds distance.
McNulty is the opposite. A junior world time trial champion in 2016, he can follow the right wheels and then strike late. Though he pulled out sick from the Tour de France, McNulty showed up in Paris to party sporting blonde-tinted hair.
That contrast in styles and attitude could make the pair even more dangerous and give Team USA a serious shot at the podium.
It’s been a long wait for another rainbow jersey. Greg LeMond won twice — 1983 and 1989 — Lance Armstrong in 1993.
‘Dream Team’ squad chasing the rainbow
Team USA brings its strongest elite men’s road squad to Montréal in years.
Simmons and McNulty are already flying, and will see top support.
Matteo Jorgenson, Kevin Vermaerke, Sean Quinn, Artem Shmidt, Riley Sheehan, and Larry Warbasse round out the eight-rider selection, meaning the Americans have the depth and experience to go deep.
“I think it gives the U.S. probably our best shot at a win since Lance won in ’93. I mean, we have eight guys that are all really strong, and all have a job to contribute,” Vermaerke told Cyclingnews at the recent Vuelta a España.
Team USA will have options in what’s only the fourth time North America has hosted the road worlds.
Vermaerke spent much of the second half of the 2026 Vuelta in breakaways after Pogačar crashed out, so he’ll be one to watch for early moves.
Jorgenson can also shine in the monument-like distance, and Sheehan could be a wild card in a reduced bunch kick.
Neilson Powless, who recently pulled out of Montréal, was fifth in 2021 Leuven for the best men’s American finish in two decades in the elite men’s road race.
The United States hasn’t won the men’s road title since Armstrong took the rainbow jersey in Oslo in 1993.
If the 33-year drought ends Sunday, it might not come from the American everyone is watching.
It might come from the quiet outsider who already knows how to win in Montréal.