{"id":199577,"date":"2026-09-07T22:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T22:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/199577\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T22:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T22:43:12","slug":"montreal-mural-of-quebec-cyclist-hugo-houle-replaced-by-image-of-michael-woods-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/199577\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal mural of Quebec cyclist Hugo Houle replaced by image of Michael Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2022, Hugo Houle became the first Quebec cyclist to win a stage of the Tour de France, an achievement that earned him a mural in Montreal three years later.<\/p>\n

But one week before the prestigious 2026 Grand Prix Cycliste de Montr\u00e9al, the tribute to the Quebecer has been erased.<\/p>\n

Ottawa cyclist Michael Woods is now featured at the centre of the mural painted on the building located at the corner of Mont-Royal Avenue and Saint-Urbain Street.<\/p>\n

The mural depicts his stage victory in the 2024 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, showcasing Woods wearing his Canadian champion’s jersey, emblazoned with the Maple Leaf.<\/p>\n

Created in the summer of 2025, the previous mural highlighted Houle’s historic victory in the Tour de France. It notably featured the inscription “first victory of a Quebecer in the Tour de France,” accompanied by the date of his stage win in Foix on July 19, 2022.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The mural was created last year in Montreal to pay tribute to cyclist Hugo Houle’s stage victory in the 2022 Tour de France. (Christinne Muschi\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

Houle says he was not consultated about removal<\/p>\n

The building the mural appears on belongs to Israeli-Canadian businessman Sylvan Adams, founder of Israel-Premier Tech, for which Houle and Woods both rode.<\/p>\n

Houle said on Saturday that he had not been consulted regarding the removal of the mural. The Quebec cyclist also stated that he had not had any contact with Adams since last September.<\/p>\n

“I achieved my victory in the Tour de France for my brother Pierrik [who died in 2012]. No painting on a wall will ever change that moment, or what it represents,” he said in a statement to Radio-Canada.<\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

(Thibault Camus\/The Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Woods, for his part, has retired as a rider<\/a>, but remains employed by NSN Cycling, the new name of Israel-Premier Tech, as a consultant.<\/p>\n

The Ontario cyclist, based in the Outaouais region, will still participate in the UCI Grand Prix Cyclistes de Qu\u00e9bec and de Montr\u00e9al, as well as the Road World Championships, both being held in Montreal.<\/p>\n

The organizers of the Grand Prix cycling races and the Road World Championships, as well as Cycling Canada, did not respond to Radio-Canada’s requests for comment in time for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2022, Hugo Houle became the first Quebec cyclist to win a stage of the Tour de France,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[60199,46000,351,16071,62583,62584,25751,62579,62586,32390,62585,50,241,62581,7702,62582,989,62580],"class_list":["post-199577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-60199","tag-adams","tag-canadian","tag-cycling-canada","tag-cycliste-de-montreal","tag-de-montreal","tag-grand-prix","tag-houle","tag-hugo","tag-hugo-houle","tag-michael-woods","tag-montreal","tag-quebec","tag-quebecer","tag-radio-canada","tag-radio-canadas","tag-the-canadian-press","tag-woods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}