The 2026 UCI Road World Championships will be held in Montreal, Canada, while the 2027 World Championships will be held in the Haute-Savoie department of France. The announcement was made after the UCI Congress in Wollongong on Thursday.

The Montreal World Championships will be hosted by the Evenyman GPCQM, which has been running the GP de Québec and GP de Montréal World Tour races since 2010. These races will serve as a springboard for the 2026 World Championships, which will be held in late September.

Montreal also hosted the World Championships in 1974, when Eddy Merckx and Geneviève Gambillon won the rainbow jersey at the Circuit de la Mount-Royal.

In 1974, the World Championships were held outside Europe for the first time; in 2003, the World Championships returned to Canada when Igor Astarloa and Susanne Ljungskog won the elite road race in Hamilton. [Meanwhile, the 2027 World Championships in Haute-Savoie will fill a 27-year gap for France, which hosted the World Championships road race in Plouay in 2000.

The 2027 Haute-Savoie event will be the second edition of the Cycling World Championships organized by the UCI, with title races in road, track, mountain biking, para-cycling, gravel, and BMX. This World Cycling Championships is held every four years, the year before the Olympic Games.

Glasgow in 2023 will be held on the novel date of early August, while the UCI has decided to hold the 2027 World Championships from September 11 to 26. The 2027 World Championships will also feature a covered velodrome in the Haute-Savoie department, the location of which has not yet been announced.

The UCI has decided that 19 world titles will be held in Haute-Savoie, including gravel, enduro, pump track, junior track, cycling esports, and polo bike. At next year's Glasgow World Championships, the rainbow jersey will be contested in 13 events.

The road race circuit for the 2027 World Championships has not yet been revealed, but it is likely to follow the demanding course of the 1980 World Championships in Sarranches, won by Bernard Hinault. Indeed, when Haute-Savoie officially announced its candidacy last February, the press conference was held at the Côte de Domancy.

"It is time to organize a world championship where Grand Tour specialists and climbers have a chance to become world champions," UCI president David Lapartien told L'Équipe.

With Thursday's announcement, the next five years of road world championships will be held in Glasgow in 2023, Zurich in 2024, Kigali in 2025, Montreal in 2026, and Haute-Savoie in 2027.

The UCI also announced venues for World Championships in other disciplines: the 2025 Track World Championships will be held in San Juan, Argentina, and the following year in Shanghai.

The Gravel World Championships will be held in Vlaams Brabant, Belgium in 2024, Nice in 2025, and Nanap, Australia in 2026.

Leogang, Australia will host the MTB World Championships in 2028, and Primiero San Martino Castrozza will host the MTB Marathon World Championships in 2026.

The Junior Track World Championships will be held in China in 2024, host city TBA, and in Apeldoorn in 2025.