Cycling
5 riders to watch at the Women’s Elite Road World Championships in Montreal
The Women’s Elite UCI Road Worlds will be one of the most exciting races of the year, with almost every nation represented bringing at least one potential winner. Here are five riders to watch.
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The UCI Road World Championships – Women Elite Road Race is wide open. With two Tour de France Femmes winners, two former world champions, and 27 national champions on the start line, there are a huge number of potential winners.
The women’s elite road race course is 180km in length with almost 2,500m of elevation spread over a 72km flat start before tackling eight laps of the Montreal city circuit, made famous by the men’s WorldTour race the GP Cycliste de Montreal.
Although there is no women’s equivalent of this race, the course suits punchy, classic-style riders who thrive in hilly terrain in races like the Amstel Gold Race or Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Here are five riders to watch on September 26 in Montreal, Canada.
01
Demi Vollering: Capping off a dominant season
Demi Vollering celebrates a stage win in Beaujolais
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Demi Vollering’s 2026 season has been nigh on perfect. She’s been winning at the highest level since the start of the year with a spring campaign that included victories in Omloop Nieuwsblad, the Tour of Flanders, Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. If that wasn’t enough, she went on to win not one but two Grand Tours at the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in near-flawless fashion.
Vollering’s dominance is down to a lethal combination of raw power, tactical prowess and a level of perseverance unmatched by most.
Demi Vollering salutes the crowd after her Tour de France Femmes victory
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
While Vollering is an incredible individual athlete, a lot of her success this year has been down to some amazing support from her FDJ UNITED-SUEZ team-mates. At the World Championships riders represent their national federation teams rather than their trade team but, fortunately for Vollering, the Dutch squad has one of the deepest rosters in the race.
With support from riders who have all the attributes to win the race themselves, like Puck Pieterse, Karlijn Swinkels and Riejanne Markus, Vollering and her team will have the horsepower to control the race and do their best to ensure the chips fall in their favour.
Will Vollering be able to upgrade the European Champions jersey we’ve seen her racing in this season for the rainbow jersey in Montreal?
02
Lotte Kopecky: In search of a third title
Belgium's Lotte Kopecky is a two-time elite world champion
© Luc Claessen/Getty Images
The Belgian team will be led by Lotte Kopecky, a two-time elite world champion who knows how to deliver when the stakes are high and the pressure is on.
Kopecky’s power and ability to survive hard, hilly races and still deliver a devastating sprint finish make her a real threat if she comes to the line with a small group. So we can expect the slighter riders in the peloton will look to make the hilly circuit as hard as possible in the hope of dispatching Kopecky before the finish.
Kopecky is no stranger to long races, and won Milano-Sanremo Donne in March but, since then, victories in 2026 have been hard to come by for the Belgian – she recently withdrew from the Tour of Britain after Stage 2, citing illness. It remains to be seen whether or not she’ll have recovered and found the form necessary to contest the victory in the road race, but the individual time trial a week earlier will give an indication of how her preparation has gone on the road to Montreal.
03
Kim LeCourt-Pienaar: A potential history maker
Kim LeCourt could be the first African to win the UCI Elite World Champs
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The Mauritian rider has had a couple of breakout seasons in 2025 and 2026, and – on her current trajectory – winning the elite road race at the world championships seems to be a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. She has all the attributes required to win on a circuit like Montreal’s and has built her form throughout the season to arrive in Canada in peak condition.
The Tour of Britain winner was dominant on the roads of the UK, and couldn’t be overthrown by a peloton that included some of the best teams in the world. Her stage victory in this year’s Tour de France came at the end of a gruelling day of racing over 153km with more than 2,500m of elevation, so the Mauritian – who also won Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2025 – has already shown how well suited she is to the course.
Winning the rainbow jersey would not only be monumental for LeCourt, but also for the continent of Africa. If she was to win in Montreal, she would become the first African rider in history to claim victory in the UCI Elite World Championships – a historic opportunity for the rider and the sport as a whole.
04
Kate Courtney: The wildcard
Kate Courtney is a double world champion off road
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While the former mountain biker doesn't boast a great deal of road racing experience, Kate Courtney has already shown a natural gift for the discipline after winning the US national title in her first-ever one-day road race just three months ago.
Since joining the FDJ UNITED-SUEZ team in July, Courtney has gone on to hone her craft by competing at some UCI one-day races in France, the Tour of Britain in the UK, and even cutting her teeth in some Belgian Kermesse races to deepen her experience in the country often referred to as the ‘school of bike racing’.
Kate Courtney has shown a talent for road racing
© Thomas Maheux/Red Bull Content Pool
Courtney already has a pair of UCI World Champions jerseys in her wardrobe – with mountain bike victories in the 2018 cross-country Olympic race and the 2025 cross-country marathon race – so racing with the pressure of a world title on her shoulders is nothing new.
Despite her natural ability as a world-class cyclist, Courtney remains somewhat of an unknown quantity in a race like the Road World Championships, and will rely on the experience of her USA Cycling team-mates to guide her through the early stages of the race and put her in a position to fight for victory. In her corner is a deep roster of team-mates, including the winner of the gold medal in Paris in 2024, Kristen Faulkner, and veteran former Pan-American continental champion Lauren Stephens.
Courtney is a rider with climbing ability, explosiveness and world-class bike handling. All she has to do is race the longest road race of her life and overcome some of the best riders in the world… sounds easy, right?
05
Célia Gery: The next generation
Célia Gery could become the youngest elite world champion since 2016
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The third-youngest woman in the race, and part of a strong French squad with multiple cards to play, Célia Gery heads to her first elite world championships with very little to lose, but plenty to gain.
We’ve seen Gery race aggressively since her victories at De Brabantse Pijl and Grand Prix Féminin de Chambéry in the spring, as well as watching her play a pivotal role in Demi Vollering’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift victory, and – judging by her race craft – you’d be forgiven for thinking Gery is more experienced than she actually is. However, despite still being eligible, the 20-year-old is skipping the under-23 race in favour of the elite race, such is her confidence.
The French national team is one of the deepest in the race, and with team-mates like Cédrine Kerbaol, Maëva Squiban and Gery’s FDJ UNITED-SUEZ trade team-mates Juliette Berthet and Évita Muzic, we can expect to see some aggressive tactics on display from Les Bleus.
If Gery takes the victory on the streets of Montreal, she will become the youngest elite world champion since Amalie Dideriksen’s victory in 2016, and shift the focus of the cycling world from the established greats to the next generation.
06
The best of the rest
The field at the elite women’s road race is incredibly strong. Aside from these five riders, big names like Paula Blasi, Elisa Longo Borghini, Kasia Niewiadoma, Marlen Reusser, Franziska Koch, Puck Pieterse and more will feature at the front of this race and battle it out for the coveted rainbow jersey.
This race is going to be 180km of thrilling, unpredictable racing that you don’t want to miss. The race kicks off at 9am EDT (1pm UTC) on Saturday, September 26.
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