Hugo Houle (Ag2r) has continued his steady improvement as a time triallist by claiming his maiden Canadian TT title. The 24-year-old talent was 26 seconds faster than Ryan Roth (Silber) and 1.06 faster than Christian Meier (Orica-GreenEDGE) on the 43.8km course in Saint-Georges.

This year Houle has had his best season yet as he took a remarkable third in the Tour de San Luis TT behind Adriano Malori and Michal Kwiatkowski. He has been unable to take that great form back to the biggest races in Europe but today's title confirms his improvement.

The major absentee in the race was defending champion Svein Tuft who has only missed out on two wins since 2004, in 2007 when he was beaten by Ryder Hesjedal and in 2013 when he was absent. Being focused on the Tour de France, the defending champion decided to skip the race and this opened the door for last year's silver medal to take his first title.

The road race will be held on Sunday. Tuft is again the reigning champion.