Cycling Road World Championships 2026: GB medal chance with Pogacar absence
Great Britain's impressive rider line-up for cycling's Road World Championships means the team have rarely stood a better chance of glory.For the men, there is also the helpful factor of Slovenian superstar Tad...
Great Britain's impressive rider line-up for cycling's Road World Championships means the team have rarely stood a better chance of glory.
For the men, there is also the helpful factor of Slovenian superstar Tadej Pogacar being absent, after he suffered crash injuries during the Vuelta a Espana in August.
But at the same time a new generation of British cycling talent is rising, and GB riders could take the coveted winner's rainbow jersey in the men's and women's road races in Montreal this weekend.
While Pogacar crashed out of the Vuelta, the race showcased the continued emergence of 21-year-old British rider Matthew Brennan, who won five stages of the three-week endurance test for Visma Lease a Bike - a record for a Grand Tour debutant.
There are currently 49 British riders competing across the men's and women's world tours - more than ever before - and some of those will compete in this World Championship weekend.
The road race itself is much like a stage of the Tour de France, but in which riders compete in national squads, looking to out-think and out-muscle each other.
A lot of the British potential is thanks to the inspiration of British cycling's golden period, which featured great success from the likes of Team Sky, Mark Cavendish and Lizzie Deignan across the past 15 years.
Deignan won the road race in 2015, while Cavendish triumphed in 2011.
In total, British riders have won the elite road races seven times, including Tom Simpson (1965), Beryl Burton (1960 & 1967), Mandy Jones (1982) and Nicole Cooke (2008).
Amid an unpredictable performance landscape for the women, Britain's best young female riders have a chance to infiltrate the once-dominant Dutch contingent.
Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering remains the sport's best overall, but Briton Zoe Backstedt's brilliant second place in Sunday's Worlds time trial was her first shot at the elite level.
She will be involved in Saturday's women's road race, and Olympic mountain bike gold medallist and Tour de France stage winner Tom Pidcock will race for the men on Sunday.
"You need a lot of faith in your team to be present at the front," Backstedt told BBC Sport. "You need to talk, hear, see and feel each other to know they are there, especially as there's no team radio.
"Obviously it's about knowing the big names to follow. If Demi or Kasia [Niewiadoma] go off the front, you know it's a dangerous move and you need to be there.
"But we've got a super strong team, and if any one of us was with them, we all could stand have a chance."
The women's road race is 180.4km long, which includes eight laps of Montreal, and the men's 273.2km race incorporates 12 circuits.
One key way to win a road race at the Road Worlds is by breaking away from the peloton with a certain distance of the race left to run.
The risk is that one, or a handful, of cyclists find it much harder to win a race by riding into the wind than a peloton of more than 100 riders all taking turns in what can be known as the 'washing machine effect'.
But, if the legs are good and the wind is with them, riders can break away for glory.
"Sometimes you are surprised when you hit the wall, but other times you can push harder and dig deeper," Norway's Sigrid Haugset told the BBC's More Than the Score podcast.
The Uno-X Mobility rider won stage three of this year's Tour de France Femmes after a huge 113km breakaway in which she beat more decorated rivals, such as Belgium's Lotte Kopecky.
"That's the good day - when you feel unstoppable. But I like it when there is plenty of noise [on the team radio from the car]. If it's too little, you get into your head, you feel a bit alone."
Steve Cummings is sporting director at World Tour team Jayco Alula and a former GB rider and breakaway stage winner on both the 2015 and 2016 Tours de France.
Assessing the thrill of a breakaway win, he told More Than the Score: "It's like an underdog victory, and it kind of warms the heart. You have to go all-in. It becomes unpredictable and things can happen tactically and physically - say if a rider pushes too much on a climb.
"That day [in 2015] I did the climb of my life. I was empty for two days after [the 2016 win] and I was in bed for two days after [a Dauphine stage win]. It takes a lot out of you."
Elite Women: Zoe Backstedt, Lauren Dickson, Pfeiffer Georgi, Anna Henderson, Anna Morris, Flora Perkins, Alice Towers
Elite men: Mark Donovan, Ethan Hayter, Oscar Onley, Finlay Pickering, Tom Pidcock, James Shaw, Callum Thornley, Fred Wright, Adam Yates
U23 Men: Jacob Bush, Mattie Dodd, Elliot Rowe, Will Smith, Ben Wiggins
U23 Women: Cat Ferguson, Abi Miller, Awen Roberts, Imogen Wolff, Morven Yeoman
Junior Women: Aalia Clay, Peggy Knox, Gabriella McHugh, Zoe Roche, Melanie Rowe
Junior Men: Leon Atkins, Gus Dutton, Finlay Storrie, Dexter Townsend, Evander Wishart