Larry Warbasse was grinding up the university climb in Montreal when the news reached him from riders around him. Brandon McNulty had ridden clear of the lead group and was about to become the first American man to win the elite road race world title since Lance Armstrong in 1993.
McNulty attacked with roughly 30 kilometres remaining on the 273.4 km Montreal course on 27 September 2026 and held the finish by 13 seconds over Michael Matthews of Australia, with Mathieu van der Poel of the Netherlands third. The 28-year-old UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider from Phoenix became the third American man to wear the rainbow stripes in the road race after Greg LeMond (1983 and 1989) and Armstrong (1993).
Two other Americans finished in the top ten: Quinn Simmons was fourth and Matteo Jorgenson eighth.
A title Warbasse “never imagined” being part of
Warbasse, a climber now with the Swiss ProTeam Tudor, told Domestique Cycling the result was personal as well as national.
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“It’s definitely one of the biggest highlights. I probably never imagined I’d get to be a part of a team that would win the men’s elite road race title, so that was huge,” he said to Domestique Cycling.
He added that he had been riding alongside McNulty’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG trade teammate Ivo Oliveira when the news came up the road, and that both took real pleasure from it.
A race the US entered without the defending champion
The Montreal podium looked more open than any in recent memory. Tadej Pogacar, the 2025 world champion, did not travel to Canada after suffering a concussion and fractures to his collarbone and a cervical vertebra in a stage 8 crash at the Vuelta a España. His absence, Warbasse told Domestique Cycling, lifted the US ambition from a podium shot to something larger during the race itself.
Warbasse hopes the rainbow jersey pulls US races back
Warbasse framed the win to Domestique Cycling as more than one rider’s day. He described the elite men’s side of US cycling as having gone through a long down period and said he saw a chance for the rainbow jersey to shift the balance.
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“I hope it will bring more attention to cycling in the US, and help us to get some races back, like the Tour of California,” he told Domestique Cycling.
The Amgen Tour of California, the country’s biggest men’s and women’s stage race on the UCI calendar, last ran in 2019 before AEG put it on hiatus in October of that year, citing changing business fundamentals. It has not returned since.
McNulty will race in the rainbow jersey until the 2027 UCI Road World Championships, which are set for Haute-Savoie in France from 24 August to 5 September 2027, with the road races based in Sallanches.
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