Olympic champions, Tour de France stars, and a mountain bike world champion turned street racer — USA Biking is bringing a stacked crew to Montréal in pursuit of the rainbow jersey.

With the UCI Highway World Championships returning to North America for the primary time since Richmond in 2015, the largest names in U.S. biking have circled this one on the calendar.

Staff USA will ship 34 athletes throughout all classes to compete in Montréal from September 20 to 27, with Matteo Jorgenson, Quinn Simmons, Brandon McNulty, Kristen Faulkner, and Kate Courtney headlining the elite street groups.

The rainbow jersey ranks alongside the Tour de France yellow jersey as one in all biking’s most prized tunics, and it has been many years since an American gained the elite street race.

Lance Armstrong was the final American man to win in 1993, whereas Beth Heiden stays the latest American lady to assert the title all the way in which again in 1980.

This 12 months’s U.S. groups are filled with potential outsiders and race-breakers able to difficult five-star favorites akin to Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel, Lotte Kopecky, and Demi Vollering.

Double Olympic gold medalist Kristen Faulkner headlines the ladies’s crew alongside the shock addition of Kate Courtney, who lately pivoted from mountain biking and gravel to street racing after signing with FDJ United-Suez.

Courtney, a former cross-country and marathon mountain bike world champion, gained the U.S. street title earlier this season and can make her elite Highway World Championships debut in Montréal.

Chasing the rainbow jersey

With two-time defending champion Tadej Pogačar nonetheless a query mark after present process shoulder surgical procedure Monday in Spain, the elite males’s race may be extra open than anticipated.

That uncertainty might create a gap for Simmons, who completed ninth on the 2024 worlds in Zürich and has already proven he can thrive on Montréal’s grinding circuit.

Simmons — a junior world champion — completed third finally 12 months’s GP Montréal behind winner McNulty and Pogačar on roads that carefully mirror the worlds course.

McNulty and Jorgenson will give america two extra confirmed WorldTour choices, with each riders able to attacking or supporting Simmons deep into the race.

Neilson Powless provides one other confirmed championship performer, and his fifth on the 2021 worlds in Leuven stays the perfect end result by an American elite man since 1999.

U.S. time trial champion Artem Shmidt will carry the American colours in opposition to the clock after successful his first elite nationwide title earlier this season. No American man has gained the elite world time trial title, with Taylor Phinney’s silver medal in 2012 remaining the nation’s closest end result.

Faulkner brings the largest championship pedigree to the ladies’s roster. The 2024 Olympic street race and crew pursuit champion will chase one other main worldwide title in Montréal.

Courtney will make her street worlds debut alongside triathlete and Olympic time trialist Taylor Knibb, who will contest the person time trial.

Lauren Stephens and Grace Arlandson, teammates at Aegis X Leaders of Enchantment, full the deep elite girls’s choice.

A couple of massive names lacking

A number of distinguished People are lacking from the choice.

Chloé Dygert, the 2024 street race silver medalist and a two-time world time trial champion, continues to get well from surgical procedure.

Sprinter Luke Lamperti was additionally left off the roster, whereas Sepp Kuss and Matthew Riccitello are racing the Vuelta a España and their respective climbing profiles usually are not ideally suited to the Montréal circuit.

American riders face a deep historic drought within the street race.

Greg LeMond stays the one American man to win two elite street titles, with the rainbow jersey in 1983 and 1989. Armstrong adopted with victory in Oslo in 1993.

Though Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and different outcomes, his 1993 world championship stays on the official UCI outcomes sheet.

Audrey McElmury in 1969 and Heiden in 1980 are the one American girls to win the elite street race. Dygert got here closest to ending that drought with silver in 2024.

American girls have loved much more success within the time trial.

Karen Kurreck gained the inaugural girls’s title in 1994, adopted by Mari Holden in 2000, Kristin Armstrong in 2006 and 2009, Amber Neben in 2008 and 2016, and Dygert in 2019 and 2023.

Full rosters for 2026 Montréal street worlds

The rising expertise of tomorrow may also chase rainbow jerseys in Montréal.

U.S. champions Ashlin Barry and Kade Kreikemeier headline the U23 males’s crew, whereas Katherine Sarkisov and Kylee Hanel lead the U23 girls.

Nationwide champions Enzo Hincapie and Kashus Adamski anchor the junior males’s choice. Sophia Wellmeier and Liliana Edwards will carry American hopes within the junior girls’s street race and time trial.

Right here’s the complete Montréal choice: