Asked what would make his week in Canada historic, the Belgian was blunt.

“How often has a rider won both the time trial and the road race at the same World Championship?” Evenepoel put to reporters. “Never.”

That is the target. The elite men’s individual time trial in Montreal is on Sunday, 20 September, and the road race closes the week on Sunday, 27 September, with every one of the championships’ 13 events finishing on Avenue du Parc beneath Mount Royal, according to the host federation.

The field has thinned around him

The race Evenepoel is trying to win looks very different from the one that seemed set weeks ago.

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Tadej Pogacar, defending road race champion, will not start. The Slovenian crashed on stage 8 of the Vuelta a España after hitting a rock at the side of the road, suffering a concussion, a fracture of the C7 cervical vertebra and an open collarbone fracture. UAE Team Emirates-XRG confirmed his 2026 season is over, ruling him out of Montreal, the European Championships and Il Lombardia.

Jonas Vingegaard, the other headline name many had pencilled in as a contender, will also miss the road race. The Dane fractured his right collarbone in a Tour de France crash and, with recovery time short and few autumn races suiting him, Visma | Lease a Bike do not expect him back on the road this year.

Evenepoel made clear he is not treating the absences as a free pass.

“I sent a message to wish him a good recovery,” he said of Pogacar.

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Belgium hand him a co-leader in Van Aert

Belgium have named an eight-rider squad for the road race with Evenepoel and Wout van Aert as joint leaders, backed by Tiesj Benoot, Maxim Van Gils, Alec Segaert, Quinten Hermans, Thibau Nys and Gianni Vermeersch. National coach Serge Pauwels flagged form curves and squad roles above raw results in his selection.

Van Aert has been leading the Vuelta points classification and is racing Worlds off a grand tour for only the second time, having crashed out on his previous attempt in 2024.

The strongest external threat looks like Mathieu van der Poel. The Dutchman is basing himself in Moraira, Spain after the Skoda Tour de Luxembourg, repeating the build-up that carried him to bronze at the 2024 Worlds in Zürich.

An altitude camp weighted for rain

Evenepoel spent his Worlds build-up at an altitude camp weighted towards bad-weather work, mindful that Montreal in late September can serve up rain on the Mount Royal laps.

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“I went through wind and rain to be prepared for rain races as well,” he said.

Before the Worlds itself, he is riding the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec on Friday and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal on Sunday, both on the same Avenue du Parc finish that the championships will use.

The men’s road race in Montreal covers 273.7 kilometres with roughly 3,800 metres of climbing across 12 laps of Mount Royal, a course profile that has convinced several selectors it will be won by a puncheur rather than a pure climber. That is the terrain on which Evenepoel wants to add a second rainbow jersey to the time trial title he will attempt to defend the previous Sunday.

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