Race thread: 🇨🇦 Québec & Montréal (Sep 12 & 14)
Race thread: 🇨🇦 Québec & Montréal (Sep 12 & 14)
Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec | UCI World Tour | Sept. 12, 2025
The two Canadian WT race are held in Québec this Friday and this Sunday.
On Friday, it takes place in Québec (the city) :
I would say the 216 km race is for punchers-sprinters. Last year, Matthews🇦🇺*won; it is his race : he won it 3 times, has been on the podium each of the last 6 editions + 2 other times previously.
This year, the circuit was modified a bit compared to previous editions.
On Sunday, it takes place in Montréal :
https://gpcqm.ca/en/grand-prix-cycliste-montreal/
This 209 km race offers a longer climb, opening the race and adding climbers and classicmen to punchers, with still a few sprinters. Pogatchar🇸🇮*won 2 of the last 3 editions, and he will be there on Sunday (as well as in Québec on Friday).
The circuit remains the same as previous editions.
Atrocious TV direction in Montréal. An even worse version of the bad TV direction we had on a couple of Belgian spring classics.
Not once could we see what was happening in the chasing group, or even how Simmons' gap ahead of them was evolving. 2 camera-motorcycles and the helicopter (when he was present) stayed stuck for 20 minutes or so on the 2 UAE riders at the front of the race, after it had become clear that Simmons would not be able to catch up with them and that they would share the victory. Then there was 1 camera-motorcycle on Simmons, camera which never turned back to show if anything was coming behind, and that was it (we could only see Simmons himself trying to look back to assess his advance!).
25% of the cameras on Simmons; 75% utterly uselessly stuck on the 2 UAE riders (100% on static positions). 0% for the rest, the only place where something could happen.
On a side note, the TV director had already managed to miss the only thing everyone, all along the last 50 miles, expected and was waiting for: Pogatchar's attack from the peloton. You had one thing to do today, you've known it for a month, and oops... 😀
Whenever I watch races from North America it seems like the TV directors don't know a thing about cycling, which of course means that it's hard to know what to film...