The Asturian cyclist was crowned junior world road champion just two days after also winning the world time trial title, capping off a historic World Championships in Montreal.
Benjamín Noval Suárez now has two rainbow jerseys. The young Spanish cyclist, just 17 years old, was crowned junior road world champion on Thursday at the 2026 World Championships in Montreal, capping off an extraordinary performance just 48 hours after winning gold in the individual time trial.
The Asturian put on a true masterclass on a demanding 134-kilometer course with 2,690 meters of elevation gain around Mont-Royal. The race consisted of ten laps of a particularly grueling circuit, featuring climbs such as Voie Camillien-Houde and Chemin de la Polytechnique, where the gradients exceeded 11% in some sections.
A goal to seal the World Cup title
Spain was in contention for much of the race, but it wasn’t until the final 45 kilometers that Noval began to show his true strength.
The Spaniard broke away from the peloton to close a gap that had reached about one minute and 45 seconds behind the leaders. After catching up to the breakaway group, he continued to make the race more challenging with several attacks until he finally broke away solo on the penultimate lap. From there, he rode alone for about 19 kilometers to the finish line.
Noval crossed the finish line with a time of 3:23:35, finishing 42 seconds ahead of France’s Simon Defrance. Sweden’s Elias Wandel rounded out the podium, finishing 2:12 behind the winner.
The victory was also the result of a great team effort by the Spanish national team. After the race, Noval praised the work of his teammates Raúl López, Luca Martínez, and Aitor Martínez, noting that the plan the team had devised had worked perfectly.
Two rainbow jerseys in just 48 hours
The victory takes on even greater significance given what happened just two days earlier. On Tuesday, Benjamín Noval had already won the Junior World Time Trial Championship, completing the 20.3-kilometer course in 25:17.35 and beating Belgium’s Vic De Smet by just over six seconds.
With these two titles, Noval becomes the first Spanish cyclist to win both the time trial and the road race in the same edition of the Junior World Championships. The last rider to achieve this double was Remco Evenepoel in 2018.
The result also caps off a historic week for Spanish cycling in Montreal. Before Noval, only Miguel Morrás had won the men’s junior road world title for Spain, in 1994.
One of the great prospects in Spanish cycling
A native of Pola de Laviana, Asturias, and the son of former professional cyclist Benjamín Noval González, the young rider has been making a name for himself in the junior ranks for several seasons, but his performance in Montreal marks one of the greatest milestones of his still-short career.
At age 17, Noval leaves Montreal with two world titles and two rainbow jerseys, after dominating two completely different events and confirming his immense international potential.
At RALI Bikes, we’re celebrating another triumph for Spanish cycling and for a generation that continues to make its mark in the world’s most important competitions.
Congratulations, Benjamin. Two races, two gold medals, and a week for the history books. 🌈🌈🥇