We could talk about how the big favourites failed to animate the women’s road race World Championships, how they were over-patient, fearful of launching their own moves, forever looking at each other, waiting for someone else to make a decisive attack. The inquest into why the Dutch, Italians, French or Swiss didn’t win, or why Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and Kim Le Court could only populate lower positions in the top-10, will come, and it will deservedly be critical of their race tactics.
There is a time for all of that, but that time is not now. Right now it’s time to celebrate how a collection of riders not expected to feature in the finale of the race were instead the ones ahead of the likes of Demi Vollering, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Elisa Longo Borghini, how they outsmarted and outfought the winners of the biggest races.
Above all, it’s time to celebrate how Magdeleine Vallieres, a rider who had only won one race in her professional career, is the new world champion. 24 years old, Canadian, riding for EF Education-Oatly for the past four years, that’s the brief summary of the Québécois. And, this is not being disrespectful, but that’s all that most people really knew about her. If indeed they knew anything about her. Though she’s evidently blessed with talent and had earned the right to lead the Canadian team, Vallieres is largely unknown to most followers of the sport. Sorry, was. Not now she isn’t.
Most of the time she’s a domestique. Most of the time she’s hidden away, working selflessly for her teammates. Most of the time she’s nowhere near the front of a bike race when the winning moves are made. But given the opportunity, Vallieres just proved on the biggest stage of all that she can race smarter and faster than those aforementioned riders who everyone else was looking at.
Vallieres was cheered beyond the line by her Canadian teammate Alison Jackson. Image by Zac Williams/SWpix.com
Because make no mistake, Vallieres may be a surprise victor of the race – certainly the biggest shock since a 20-year-old Amalie Dideriksen upset the odds in Doha in 2016 – but she deservedly earned the rainbow bands. She was positioned safely by her four Canadian teammates in the peloton before the real action kickstarted, and then worked her way into a lead group of 10 riders that formed with two laps to go. A group, it has to be noted, that convened after the favourites all looked at each other. While they waited, Vallieres and Co. pounced. No messing around. There was a gold medal up for grabs, an iconic jersey to wear for the next 12 months.
Once inter-group attacks started reigning down in the closing laps, Vallieres was there, at the front, always present, determined to be a key protagonist. When Niamh Fisher-Black went clear, Vallieres went with her, and Mavi García, a veteran of the peloton, eventually joined. Three became five, but then three again, and Vallieres was still around. When the final climb of the Côte de Kimihurara approached and it was obvious the trio were each going to land a spot on the podium, Vallieres knew what she had to do to make sure the top step was hers.
“I knew I probably wouldn’t win in a sprint against Niamh because she is so strong,” she said. So she didn’t wait – she attacked right at the bottom of the climb and she was never to be seen again by Fisher-Black and García. Victory was hers, the rainbow bands were hers, and Canada had its first ever gold medal at the road race World Championships. “No, I don’t believe it yet!” Vallieres exclaimed. Nor did many other people. But no one can say it wasn’t earned.
Vallieres could cross the line in Kigali with time to celebrate. Image by Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com
Just because she didn’t have the standing and the status of the bigger names, it didn’t mean that Vallieres didn’t have to prepare meticulously for this race. She might get few opportunities to win bike races, but she knew the hilly course suited her talents, and she knew what she had to do to give herself the best possible chance of doing well. That’s intelligent, smart training, by an intelligent, smart bike rider. “I’ve been dreaming about it for a while now – it was a big goal of mine so I prepared well and at altitude,” she said. “I knew I was in good form, so I tried. I told myself I didn’t want to have any regrets, and I don’t.”
What a story. Vallieres is also a product of the UCI World Cycling Centre (WCC), a place that brings together riders from across the globe and introduces them to European racing. Its biggest benefactors are typically riders from lower-income families, and riders from Africa and South America, but Vallieres benefited immensely too. Here’s the reward for the WCC program, a world title in the World Championships that the WCC is such a big part of. It’s not an African winner – though current WCC rider Kahsay Tsige Kiros of Eritrea did finish seventh in the women’s junior road race earlier in the day – but it’s a victory for the WCC nonetheless. The UCI’s development program has its greatest ever result.
So, too, does Canada. Vallieres didn’t have the squad depth of the nations of the favourites, and nor did she have the palmarès to suggest that a world title was a possibility, but she had ambition, condition, form, and a commitment to going out there, leaving everything on the line, and taking a risk. Something the favourites didn’t do. But that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that the new world champion is Magdeleine Vallieres, undoubtedly the day’s smartest and best rider.
Cover image by: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images
