Isaac del Toro won the 2026 Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal after beating Paul Seixas in a two-rider finish on Avenue du Parc, two weeks before the same Mount Royal roads help decide the men’s World Championship.
Del Toro and Seixas emerged together from a chaotic final lap after Ben Healy’s late solo attack had stretched an already heavily reduced race. Once clear, the pair quickly built enough of an advantage to ensure victory would be decided between them, before Del Toro accelerated away from Seixas on the uphill drag to the line.
Brandon McNulty completed an excellent day for UAE Team Emirates-XRG by taking third, 27 seconds behind his teammate, with Quinn Simmons fourth and Friday’s GP Québec winner Remco Evenepoel fifth.
It was an important victory in its own right for Del Toro, but the timing and location make it difficult to separate from what comes next. The redesigned GP Montréal route uses the 13.4km Mount Royal circuit that will form the decisive part of the elite men’s World Championship road race on 27 September. Del Toro has now beaten many of the riders expected to challenge for the rainbow jersey on the roads where it will be won.
Early break given little chance to settle
The first significant move contained nine riders after a fast opening to the 214.4km race.
Michal Kwiatkowski and Ådne Holter were joined by Casper Pedersen, Anders Foldager, Pelayo Sánchez, Robbe Dhondt, Robin Carpenter, Kieran Haug and Canadian champion Jérôme Gauthier. Their advantage briefly reached around three minutes, but the peloton never allowed the race to settle into the usual pattern of a long-lived early break.
UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, Pinarello-Q36.5 and Decathlon CMA CGM all contributed as the gap began to fall. The repeated climbing on Camillien-Houde gradually removed riders from the back while also shortening the break’s lifespan at the front.
All nine escapees had been caught with 107km remaining.
That early catch was significant. Rather than waiting until the final two or three laps, the favourites’ teams were left with more than half of the race still to contest and plenty of opportunities to send riders forward.
As the GP Montréal team-by-team guide suggested before the race, depth became increasingly valuable as the attacks accumulated.
Ayuso and Leonard begin the serious racing
Lidl-Trek helped drive the next phase before Juan Ayuso and Michael Leonard established the first meaningful move after the original break had disappeared.
Maximilian Schachmann later joined them, while Wilco Kelderman tried to bridge as the gap began falling towards ten seconds. Their move eventually came back, but there was little pause before another dangerous selection formed.
Healy was central to it.
The EF Education-EasyPost rider attacked around the catch and went clear with Leonard, Kelderman, Schachmann, Ayuso, Adam Yates and Maxim Van Gils. With UAE and Red Bull both represented, there was initially little incentive for those teams to close the move themselves.
By then the main group was already becoming much smaller. Repeated passages over Mount Royal had reduced the race to fewer than 40 riders with more than 40km still remaining.
A crash in the bunch then brought down Derek Gee-West, Thymen Arensman, Bart Lemmen, Alex Baudin and Clément Braz Afonso, further disrupting the chase.
Ahead, Healy was beginning to turn a strong break into his own attack.
Healy goes alone as UAE load the chase
Healy increased the pace on Camillien-Houde and initially left Ayuso behind, with Van Gils and Yates the only riders capable of staying with him.
The trio carried an advantage of around 30 seconds towards the final 25km, but the race behind had not been decided. Simmons attacked from the chasing group with McNulty following before UAE committed more heavily to bringing Del Toro into the decisive phase.
McNulty went again and this time Del Toro came with him. Seixas, Giulio Ciccone, Afonso Eulálio and Tom Pidcock were also part of the move, creating a powerful chase that eventually reconnected with Yates.
Healy had already gone further up the road alone.
The Irishman began the final lap with only a small advantage, but his attack forced everyone behind to continue racing rather than watch one another. That mattered for Evenepoel in particular. The Belgian had missed the initial decisive selection and was forced to chase his way back into contention alongside Baudin.
By the time the final ascent of Camillien-Houde arrived, the race had effectively condensed into Healy against a small group containing several of the strongest riders on the GP Montréal start list.
Seixas attacks, Del Toro responds
Seixas made the decisive acceleration.
The 19-year-old attacked hard enough on the final Camillien-Houde ascent to leave the remaining favourites behind and close onto Healy. Del Toro recognised the danger immediately and worked his way across.
Once the two were together, the shape of the race changed almost instantly.
Rather than allowing the chase to reorganise, Del Toro and Seixas committed to the move. Their advantage went beyond 25 seconds inside the final 10km and continued growing on the descent towards the finish.
By four kilometres to go, they had roughly 45 seconds.
Seixas tried to dislodge Del Toro before the sprint but could not create meaningful separation. The Frenchman nevertheless continued working because second place from a two-man finish was preferable to allowing McNulty, Evenepoel, Pidcock and the rest to return.
That cooperation carried them safely onto Avenue du Parc.
Seixas led inside the final 500 metres, leaving Del Toro tucked behind as the road began to rise. The Mexican moved out with roughly 300 metres remaining and accelerated hard enough to open an immediate gap.
Seixas could not come back.
Del Toro crossed the line in 5:13:16 to take his first GP Montréal victory, with Seixas credited with the same time. McNulty won the battle behind to secure third and put a second UAE rider on the podium.
UAE’s numbers proved decisive
Del Toro delivered the winning move, but UAE’s control of the closing stages was about considerably more than their leader.
Yates had already made the dangerous move with Healy and Van Gils, forcing rival teams to consider whether they could afford to leave a UAE rider ahead. When that combination began to change, McNulty became one of the strongest riders bridging across from behind.
Del Toro was therefore rarely forced into chasing every attack himself.
That was exactly the scenario UAE wanted. Rather than asking their leader to cover an unpredictable race alone, they continually placed riders into positions which transferred responsibility elsewhere.
“We tried to have numbers in the final,” Del Toro said afterwards. “At the end, we got pretty much a good situation for us; they just put me in the place to try to fight for the victory.”
The outcome was first and third, but the more important detail was how many different ways UAE threatened the race before Del Toro eventually finished it.
Seixas produces another major performance
Second place also provided another indication of how rapidly Seixas is progressing.
The Decathlon CMA CGM rider did not simply follow Del Toro to the finish. He made the acceleration that created the winning situation, caught Healy and then continued driving once Del Toro joined him.
The final sprint exposed the difference between the two riders on the day, but Seixas had already done enough to remove Evenepoel, Pidcock, Ciccone and the other established one-day contenders from the fight for victory.
His result also continues a season in which the Frenchman has increasingly moved from being judged as an exceptional young rider to simply being judged against the best riders in the WorldTour.
That comparison has repeatedly included Del Toro. The pair fought over the white jersey deep into the 2026 Tour de France, where Del Toro eventually finished third overall and Seixas fifth. Two months later, they were again the final two riders contesting one of the biggest races of the season.
Del Toro sends clear message before Montréal Worlds
The wider significance of Sunday’s result comes from the course.
The 2026 World Championships in Montréal return elite championship racing to Mount Royal more than half a century after Eddy Merckx won the rainbow jersey there in 1974.
The men’s World Championship will not replicate GP Montréal exactly. It begins with a longer approach before the riders complete 12 laps of the same 13.4km finishing circuit rather than the 16 laps raced on Sunday.
The important climbs, descents and technical characteristics are nevertheless the same.
Del Toro now knows he can win on them.
Evenepoel showed enough to recover from being caught behind the decisive move and still finish fifth. Pidcock and Ciccone remained involved deep into the finale. Healy demonstrated how difficult a long-range attack can be to control. Seixas showed that he can make the decisive acceleration on Camillien-Houde.
But none could beat Del Toro.
The Mexican arrived in Canada already established as one of the outstanding riders of the 2026 season after winning the UAE Tour, Tirreno-Adriatico, Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Deutschland Tour before finishing on the Tour de France podium.
Montréal adds something different. It is a major WorldTour one-day victory, achieved against a championship-level field and on the circuit where the rainbow jersey will shortly be decided.
Two weeks out from the men’s road race, Del Toro has provided considerably more than evidence of good form. He has shown everyone else exactly what winning on Mount Royal looks like.
2026 GP Montreal result
Data powered by FirstCycling.com
Main photo credit: Getty
