Forty-four minutes, fifty-three seconds
Nobody got close. Remco Evenepoel covered the 39.2 kilometres of the Montreal course in 44:53.13 this afternoon and turned the elite men’s time trial at the Road World Championships into something closer to a demonstration. Filippo Ganna, the best pure tester of his generation, crossed 57 seconds later.
Evenepoel was fastest at all three intermediate checks. He never handed the chasers a target that looked reachable, because every time the clock updated, the gap had grown rather than shrunk. The Belgian rides under the nickname “aerobullet” and the opening day of these championships explained why.
Ganna did what Ganna usually does, starting within himself and building through the back half of the course. The negative split lifted him from an early deficit into silver and no further. Third went to Paul Seixas, 19 years old, riding himself onto an elite world podium for the first time at 1:13 down. France has been waiting for a rider like him.
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Four in a row had never been done
Glasgow in 2023, Zurich in 2024, Kigali in 2025, Montreal in 2026. No man had ever strung four consecutive elite time trial world titles together. Evenepoel now has, at 26, and the four wins put him level with Fabian Cancellara and Tony Martin, two riders who needed considerably longer careers to reach that mark.
The form was not a surprise. Evenepoel won the stage 16 time trial at the Tour de France in July on his way to second overall, then took the Grand Prix de Québec earlier this month on Canadian roads he clearly likes. The record for most world time trial titles is the next thing in his sights, and he has years in which to chase it.
Marlen Reusser had already won the elite women’s title over the same 39.2-kilometre loop earlier in the day, catching Demi Vollering on her way to a second straight rainbow jersey. Montreal got two dominant rides before the road racing even started.
The double is still on
Evenepoel arrived in Canada talking about two rainbow jerseys rather than one. The elite men’s road race closes these championships next weekend on a circuit built around the Mount Royal climb, terrain that punished pure sprinters when the World Cup last visited the city. Mathieu van der Poel spent Sunday soloing 174 kilometres at the Tour de Luxembourg as his own final tune-up, so the Belgian will not have it to himself.
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