Mapei, a world leader in the manufacture of construction chemicals, is the Main Partner of the 2026 UCI Road World Championships, scheduled to take place from 20 to 27 September in Montréal, Québec. The event will bring the Road World Championships back to the Canadian city for the second time in its history, following the 1974 edition.
A week of great challenges
The 2026 edition will feature an eight-day programme comprising a total of 13 races, including individual time trials, a mixed team time trial and road races for the Junior, Under-23 and Elite categories, with around 1,000 athletes from over 80 countries taking part.
The Elite women’s and men’s road races will take place on 26 and 27 September, starting in Brossard and finishing in Montréal. The women’s race will cover 180.4 km, including 8 laps of the 13.4 km city circuit, whilst the men’s race will cover a distance of 273.7 km, comprising 12 laps of the city circuit.
A long-standing connection
Montréal holds special significance for Mapei. In 1976, exactly 50 years ago, the company supplied the products used to build the athletics track at the city’s Olympic Stadium, in time for the Olympic Games. That experience marked the start of a journey of growth that led Mapei to establish a permanent presence in Canada in 1978 with the creation of its first overseas subsidiary. Today, Mapei is a well-established company in the country, with its main site in Laval, Québec, and a production and distribution network spanning Ontario, Québec, British Columbia and Alberta.
“These UCI Road World Championships in Montréal hold special significance for us,” says Veronica Squinzi, Chief Executive of Mapei. “It is, in fact, in this city that the roots of our global history lie, and, in particular, in Canada – the first country outside Italy in which Mapei decided to invest. Being the Main Partner of the World Championships in this very city today, fifty years on from that moment, means celebrating a history built on vision, growth and a connection with the local area. It is also a way of reaffirming our commitment to cycling, a sport that continues to embody the values we believe in: passion, determination and teamwork.”
A partnership forged over time
The link between Mapei and cycling dates back to 1993, when the company entered the world of cycling by sponsoring a professional team which, up until 2002, secured 654 international victories. Since 2008, Mapei has maintained its presence in cycling, confirming its status as Main Partner of the UCI Road World Championships every year and thereby strengthening its long-standing relationship with the sport.
This year, the company’s presence in Montréal takes on even greater significance as it brings together sport, the local area and the community. This context also includes the ‘Build to Give’ project, an initiative through which Mapei Canada employees will assemble 99 bicycles during the World Championships, in collaboration with local organisations and with the support of Cycling Canada. The bicycles will then be donated to vulnerable children and families, transforming the world championships into a tangible gesture of inclusion and giving back to the community.
International visibility
During the UCI Road World Championships, Mapei will be present along the entire route with its logo, which will be visible on banners, the backdrop at the prize-giving ceremonies, areas dedicated to press conferences and interviews, as well as on all official communications materials. The company will also provide a Hospitality Area reserved for its clients, offering them a prime vantage point from which to follow the races, just a few hundred metres from the finish line. The Championships will be broadcast on major television channels across five continents, ensuring high-impact international coverage. In Italy, the event will be shown on Rai and Eurosport channels.
The Montreal Road World Cycling Championships represent not only a sporting event of the highest prestige, but also a moment of particular symbolic significance for Mapei. The 2026 edition combines, in fact, the narrative of a major global sporting event with a key chapter in the Group’s history.