--- title: "McNulty’s Miracle Run: First American World Road Race Champion Since Armstrong in 1993" description: "The 28-year-old attacked with 33 kilometres to go in Montreal and never gave the lead back" author: "Inez Holloway" published: 2026-09-27T19:55:07.537Z modified: 2026-09-28T05:17:18Z url: https://rews.cc/a/mcnulty-s-miracle-run-first-american-world-road-race-champio-519086 language: en tags: ["cycling", "sports", "armstrong", "olympics", "montreal", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # McNulty’s Miracle Run: First American World Road Race Champion Since Armstrong in 1993 *The 28-year-old attacked with 33 kilometres to go in Montreal and never gave the lead back* By Inez Holloway · September 27, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/mcnulty-s-miracle-run-first-american-world-road-race-champio-519086 ## In brief - Brandon McNulty, 28, won the elite road race at the UCI worlds in Montreal in 6:17:04, attacking with 33 km to go - He is the first American to win an elite road race world title since Lance Armstrong at Oslo in 1993 - Michael Matthews took silver in 6:17:17 and Mathieu van der Poel bronze - Michael Leonard was top Canadian in 32nd; Michael Woods finished 35th in the final race of his career - Canada started without Derek Gee-West, out with a broken rib; two-time defending champion Tadej Pogacar did not race The attack came with 33 kilometres to go, on the last afternoon of the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal, and for a long time afterward nobody answered it. Brandon McNulty, 28, whose name had appeared on nobody’s list of favourites — the names being passed around before the start were Remco Evenepoel’s, Isaac del Toro’s, that of the 20-year-old French prodigy Paul Seixas — rode the gap down to ten seconds on the final significant climb and then held the gap anyway. He crossed the line in six hours, 17 minutes and four seconds. > “Until the last 300 metres, I really didn’t even believe it. ... I was just dying, but I just kept pushing.” “I’m at a loss for words,” he said, which is a thing people say when they are not. He is the first American to win an elite road race world title since Lance Armstrong took the rainbow jersey at Oslo in 1993. Thirty-three years is a long time for a single piece of woolens to pass between riders. Armstrong, whose own relationship with the record books is a subject the sport has never quite resolved, posted his congratulations within hours: “Hands down the most exciting race of the year and a deserved winner. A thing of beauty.” McNulty pointed to the team. “We’ve said for weeks that we have a super strong team and that it’s possible. We rode crazy well. We marked everything, had guys ahead.” The field he beat had been loosened by an absence. Tadej Pogacar, the two-time defending champion, did not race; he is recovering from a crash suffered last month. Without him, the 273.4-kilometre course — twelve laps of a 13.4-kilometre circuit through crowds that CBC described as enthusiastic — ran chaotic and unpredictable all day. McNulty’s lead shrank to ten seconds with 10 kilometres left. Mathieu van der Poel attacked with 6.8 kilometres to go. The attack fizzled. Michael Matthews of Australia closed late for silver, thirteen seconds back at 6:17:17; van der Poel took bronze. Seixas, who had won bronze in the elite individual time trial on Day 1, suffered an apparent injury in the final stretch and drifted to 15th, in 6:19:51. The favourites filed in where the favourites file in. ## A last race at home Michael Leonard of Oakville, Ont., was the top Canadian, 32nd in 6:23:43. Michael Woods of Toronto finished 35th, in 6:23:52 — his final race, on home soil, a fact that will be footnoted and should not be. Nickolas Zukowsky of Sainte-Lucie-des-Laurentides came 45th in 6:23:57. Pier-André Côté, Guillaume Boivin and Hugo Houle — it was Houle’s birthday — recorded DNFs. The home team had started short a man: Derek Gee-West withdrew on Tuesday, still recovering from a broken rib sustained at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal on September 13. That September race is one McNulty knows. He won it last season. Montreal, it turns out, has been kind to him. “I knew something could happen but it would take a miracle. I guess today, a miracle happened.”