Surprising, history-making road cycling world title for Magdeleine Vallieres
Magdeleine Vallieres stunned everyone at the 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda on Saturday as the 24-year-old from Sherbrooke, Quebec won gold in the women’s road race.
She is the first Canadian—man or woman—to become an elite road race world champion and will have the honour of wearing the rainbow jersey for the next year—including at the 2026 UCI Road World Championships which will take place in Montreal.
“The girls believed in me, so I believed in myself and I really committed to going for it,” Vallieres said in reference to her Canadian teammates Alison Jackson, Olivia Baril, Laury Milette, and Émilie Fortin. “I told myself that I didn’t want any regrets and I don’t!”
Vallieres made her big attack on the final climb in the last two kilometres of the 164.6km race. That allowed her to get the win by 23 seconds ahead of Niamh Fisher-Black of New Zealand. Mavi Garcia of Spain was a further four seconds back for the bronze.
The 11-lap race included two climbs, the steep Côte de Kigali Golf and the cobbled Côte de Kimihurura. In the early going of the race, Vallieres smartly rode near the front, but always in the draft of other riders. There was an initial break by Austria’s Carina Schrempf, who was later joined by two other riders, while a chasing group that included Vallieres gradually closed the gap.
On the bell lap, Vallieres found herself in a lead group with a 30-second gap on the pack. As the race neared its end, the three eventual medallists broke away. Heading into the last climb of the Côte de Kimihurara, Vallieres made her decisive move, which neither Fisher-Black nor Garcia could respond to.
“I knew I probably wouldn’t win in a sprint against Niamh because she is strong,” Vallieres said of her decision to attack when she did. “We were both committed to this break, working really hard, and then I saw that she was fading a little bit so I told myself I just have to go all-in now and, yeah, it all worked out in the end.”
Vallieres had just one prior road race victory on her resume, the Trofeo Palma Femina in 2024. She was the runner-up in the women’s road race at the 2024 Canadian Championships and finished 14th at last year’s world championships.
Only four other Canadians had ever stood on an elite road race podium at the world championships, all with bronze medals: Steve Bauer and Michael Woods in the men’s event in 1984 and 2018, respectively, and Alison Sydor and Linda Jackson in the women’s event in 1991 and 1996, respectively.
