Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec 2024

September 13, 2024 The route consists of city circuits with the first half being rolling down and the second part containing two steep climbs and a 700M drag to the line. They take on this lap 16 times, totaling just over 200KM. The race rolled off the start line and four riders got away immediately including Antonio Polga and Filippo Ridolfo of Novo-Nordisk, and Felix Hamel and Jonas Walton of the Canadian National Team. Artem Shmidt of Ineos and Frank van den Broek of DSM-Firmenich bridged a few kilometers later to make six at the front. Polga dropped away after just 12KM and drifted back to the bunch as the gap got up to 2 minutes. It wasn't long before Ridolfo was dropped as well and it became clear that DSM-Firmenich put van den Broek in the break to make the race hard. The gap went out to 5 minutes as Lotto-Dstny and Intermarché-Wanty were forced to rider harder in the bunch. Walton was the next casualty of the pace, dropping off at 115KM to go. Hamel dropped at 77KM to go, leaving just the World Tour riders to press on. The first action from the bunch went when Ben Healy of EF-Education Easy Post attacked at 62KM to go. Six riders went with him but he had teammates of sprinters with him and UAE shut it down. The two leaders went through 50KM to go still with 4 minutes 25 seconds and were really putting pressure on the peloton. UAE did some hard riding at the front and had the gap down to 90 seconds with 25KM to go. Alex Baudin of Decathlon AG2R and Gil Gelders of Soudal Quickstep attacked together just before they passed the line for 2 laps to go but were swallowed up before they came back around. The race all came back together with 14.5KM to go, nearly 195KM in the break for Shmidt and van den Broek. Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike attacked solo as they started the downhill run to the river front. He had a maximum gap of 18 seconds but was caught when he arrived to the climbs at 3.5KM from the line. Julian Alaphilippe of Soudal Quickstep was the one to move, bringing Tadej Pogačar of UAE, Arnaud De Lie, Jenno Berckmoes, and Maxim Van Gils of of Lotto-Dstny and Jorgenson with him. The group didn't have enough gas and were caught on the final drag with 500M to go. Michael Matthews of Jayco AlUla hit out at 300M and ground everyone else to dust with his powerful low cadence sprint. It was his third win in the race making him the most successful rider in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec all-time. Biniam Girmay of Intermarché-Wanty had a late run of speed to grab second place with Rudy Molard of Groupama-FDJ taking third.