Quebec cyclist Vallieres Mill has chance to make Canadian history at world championships in Montreal

Fifty years after the road cycling world championships were last held in Montreal, the event is back and for the first time a Canadian will be defending the title of women’s world champion. 

It is a dream Magdeliene Vallieres Mill has been living for the past year after winning the coveted rainbow jersey, awarded to the women’s elite road-race world champion, last year in Rwanda. 

Belgian cyclist hit by driver while training, out of road world championships in Montreal

The eight-day championships will see more than 1,000 athletes, from junior to elite, representing over 75 countries, competing in 13 different events between 10 and 274 kilometres on streets in and around Montreal.

And Vallieres Mill, a 25-year-old from Sherbrooke, Que, will be centre stage for many Canadian fans when she competes in the 180-km elite women’s road race on Sept. 26.

Watch complete coverage of cycling championships here

How Magdeleine Vallieres Mill started her cycling journey

She was just nine when she went on her first bike tour. It was summer and her dad had decided the two of them would set out on a 1,000 km ride from their home in Sherbrooke to visit her mom in Gaspisi. 

“We did over 100 kilometres on average a day, which is quite a lot when you are only nine years old… I was either going to hate it, or really love it,” Vallieres Mill said with a laugh. 

Turns out, she loved it. 

A summer bike trip with her dad soon turned to early mornings, watching the sun rise from behind her handle bars on the roads around Sherbrooke and weekends of training with her local cycling club, Club Cycliste de Sherbrooke. 

It was at the Grand Prix de Montreal, the elite one-day World Tour professional road cycling race, that Vallieres Mill started to see