Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec 2025

September 12, 2025 Many of the biggest names in cycling have made the trip across the Atlantic to North America for two World Tour one day races in Canada, the first being the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec. Even with the World ITT in Rwanda just 9 days away, the start list is as packed as the race organizers could have hoped for. The parcours suits the designation of World Tour status as well, with a grueling 18 laps around the city totaling 216KM and 2,600M of elevation gain. The start/finish line sits at the highest point on the lap in the Plains of Abraham. The route then descends the Boulevard Champlain down to the banks of the St. Lawrence River. With about 2KM left in the 12KM lap, the riders climb the 600M at 9%, Côte de la Montange passed Le Château Frontenac. The road continues to rise all the way to the line. The route is slightly different this year with just the one sustained climb instead of multiple steps up with breaks in between which could produce a more selective finale. The atmosphere couldn't have been more perfect with clear blue skies, warm sunshine, and an electric crowd packed around to see the riders off. There was no neutral roll out so when the shot fired to set off, the race was on and the attacks started. The Canadian National Team went off first with Philippe Jacob and Félix Bouchard. They were joined by Filip Maciejuk of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe and Luca Vergallito of Alpecin-Deceuninck and the bunch shut down immediately behind. After the first lap, the break had built a 3 minute 30 second advantage as the peloton still looked very relaxed with plenty of stopping for nature breaks. Lotto was the first team to take up the chase with Henri Vandenabeele but the gap continued to grow until 120KM to go when it reached its maximum at 6 minutes 20 seconds. Tudor Pro Cycling added Jacob Eriksson and the gap gradually came down. With 84.5KM to go, Philippe Jacob's left leg started to cramp on the Côte de la Montange and unfortunately had to drop out of the break leaving just three out front. When the bunch got around to the climb, Julian Alaphilippe of Tudor Pro Cycling made a small acceleration which caught the attention of Tim Wellens of UAE-XRG. Wellens decided push on and brought eight other riders with him. XDS-Astana, Bahrain Victorious, EF-Education EasyPost, Picnic-PostNL, and Lotto were not represented and they started to send attacks to bridge up. The Wellens group was not working well together and with the string of attacks from the bunch, the favorites were all back together before descending down to the river. Attacking didn't stop because once along the river, Alaphilippe got in a group with Nils Politt of UAE-XRG, Laurence Pithie of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Xandro Meurisse of Alpecin-Deceuninck, and Bastien Tronchon of Decathlon AG2R. Through the finish line with 6 laps and 72KM to go, the Alaphilippe group was 3 minutes behind the original break and 20 seconds ahead of the peloton which was calming down. Alaphilippe decided to sit on the back but it didn't seem to disrupt the others who kept rolling through and off. Back around to the Côte de la Montange with 61KM to go, Visma-Lease a Bike put their entire team on the front of the peloton but the gap was going out. The Alaphilippe group was 2 minutes 35 seconds behind the break but now 1 minute ahead of the peloton. EF-Education EasyPost added to the chase but the gap hardly budged. Attacks came from the peloton going into 4 laps to go on the Côte de la Montange. Wellens put in a dig which was countered by Artem Shmidt of Ineos. Pavel Sivakov of UAE-XRG, Quinten Hermans of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Alberto Bettiol and Anthon Charmig of XDS-Astana, and Mattias Skjelmose of Lidl-Trek joined Shmidt and they quickly closed the gap, making contact with the Alaphilippe group just before the Boulevard Champlain descent. Splintered chase groups consolidated into one main peloton at 30 seconds. Matej Mohorič of Bahrain Victorious time trialed his way across to complete the group of twelve. Up front, Bouchard was dropped from the original break on the Côte de la Montange with 37KM to go. Politt and Pithie were also dropped from the chase group who were extending their advantage to the peloton. Visma-Lease a Bike and EF-Education EasyPost missed the moves again and were chasing but the race was getting away from them. With 34KM to go, Maciejuk and Vergallito were caught by the Alaphilippe/Sivakov group who were over 90 seconds ahead of the peloton. Alaphilippe continued to sit on the back until around 20KM to go when he started to filter into the rotation. The race really kicked off coming on to the Côte de la Montange for the penultimate time. Charmig burried himself for Bettiol to keep the lead group clear because behind, Wellens was doing the same for Tadej Pogačar. The Slovenian attacked after about 300M of the climb but he was tagged by a few others that he could not shake. When the leaders hit the line to take the bell, only Charmig, Bettiol, Skjelmose, Alaphilippe, Mohorič, Hermans, and Sivokov remained. Pogačar was 18 seconds behind and in a group with Biniam Girmay of Intermarché-Wanty, Jonas Abrahamsen of Uno-X Mobility, Paul Lapeira of Decathlon AG2R, and Meurisse who had dropped out of the front group. Along the river with 5KM to go, the Pogačar group was 13 seconds behind the lead group and 17 seconds ahead of the chasing peloton led by Jayco AlUla for Michael Matthews. Crucially for the leaders, the chase broke apart when Pogačar let a wheel go and the momentum completely went out. Discord also crept into the front group and with 3KM to go, someone let a wheel go and Bettiol and Alaphilippe found themselves with a gap back to the rest. Hermans tried to bridge the gap but couldn't make it across before the turn on to the Côte de la Montange for the final time. 30 seconds behind was the peloton of around 50 riders who had caught everyone from the Pogačar group and were frantically trying to bring the gap closer. When Bettiol and Alaphilippe turned on to the climb, Sivokov was right on their case after having made a big effort to come across. Through the center of the steepest corner at 1,500M from the line, Alaphilippe put on the power and forced open a gap. He continued pressing as hard as he could and swung on to the finishing straight at 400M with about 4 seconds on Bettiol and Sivakov. The chasing duo were coming but they ran out of road. Alaphilippe raised his arms and tilted his head back looking into the sky as he crossed the line to take his first win of the season in a swashbuckling manner that only he knows how. Sivokov took the sprint for second with Bettiol putting in a strong performance for third.