'Difficult for heavier guys' – Remco Evenepoel predicts a climber will win the men's Road World Championships road race

Remco Evenepoel has predicted that this year's elite men's World Championships around Montreal will be one for those riders with a climber's build, rather than power riders like Mathieu van der Poel.

The Belgian was speaking after the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal at the weekend, won by Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). Evenepoel pointed out the average build of the top-10 finishers – who included Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM, second), Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe's Evenepoel in fifth and Tom Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5) in sixth, was very much that of a climber.

“With the way the longer climb is ridden, it is really difficult for the heavier guys,” he was reported as saying on the Dutch outlet Wielerflits.

“If you look at the average weight of the [Montreal] top 10, we are perhaps at 63 or 65 kilograms,” said Evenepoel. “Those aren't heavy men, but riders like Wout [van Aert] and Mathieu [van der Poel] can survive this on super days,” he added.

Van Aert and Van der Poel clock in at 75 and 78kg respectively – some way above 72kg Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek), the heaviest finisher in the top-10 at the GP Montreal, in a creditable fourth place.

The World Championships course and the GP Montreal use the same Mount Royal loop in the centre of the Quebeçois city, featuring a significant climb – the Voie Camillien Houde – and multiple smaller rises, each lap. However, the races are not the same. While the GP Montreal is held exclusively on the Mount Royal loop, which it completes 16 times, the Worlds course features 100 mostly flat kilometres, before diving into the Park for 12 laps of the loop. The Worlds places less onus on outright climbing ability.

“It is also a difference that we will first ride 100 kilometres on flat terrain,” Evenepoel said. “We can ease into it a bit then; here it was full throttle right from the start. And the race is much longer, so it will be less explosive towards the end and come down more to endurance.

“It was a good dress rehearsal," he told Wielerflits. "Most of the men designated as favourites were all at the front. I always feel a bit, when coming down from altitude, that I lack that extra punch. But we still have two weeks, so it will be fine.”