In the same month that Milos Raonic and Felix Auger-Aliassime aim to elevate Canadian tennis to new heights, an Ottawa native will be riding across France in the hope of making national sporting history of his own.
Michael Woods is 32 and has only been a professional cyclist since 2013. This month he will be riding in his first Tour de France.
While his late start in the sport is unusual though highly impressive, just how he got there is even more astounding — it’s a journey full of sporting highs, crushing lows and unspeakable tragedies.
Canadian professional cyclist Michael Woods completing Stage 17 of the 2018 Vuelta a Espana
Run before you can cycle
Woods’s path to professional cycling is as winding and hilly as the most difficult Tour de France stage, full of unexpected twists and turns, and dangerous injuries.
It all started with the national sport—ice hockey. Growing up in Canada, where the mercury can drop as low as -40 during the winters, Woods’s original sporting dream was to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs. However, at just 5ft 9 and weighing 135lbs, a career on the skating rink just wasn’t in the stars.
So Woods swapped the rink for the track, becoming not only one of Canada’s hottest athletic prospects, but ending up being ranked in the world top 50 1500m runners by the age of 19.
Woods’s path to professional cycling is as winding as the most difficult Tour de France stage
He broke the record in the U-20 Mile and 3000m and won the Pan America Jr. Games 1500m race. As of 2019, Woods is still the fastest Canadian to run a mile on Canadian soil (3.57.48). His running prowess earned him a scholarship at the University of Michigan, from which he graduated with a degree in English.
However, as Woods is quick to admit himself, his highly promising athletic career was cut short due to ‘poor guidance, diet, and over-training’.
In an interview with Bicycling, Woods revealed how these factors led to his career to fall apart.
‘Because I was good at a young age at running, I set high expectations for myself. A lot of people would tell me, “You’re gonna make the Olympics.” When I started getting injured, my career started falling apart.’
In 2011, following yet another foot break, Woods’s then-girlfriend, and now wife, Elly suggested trying to cycle professionally. By that point, Woods had been injured on-off for nearly four years and the bike became as much as an outlet for the energy and stress as it had been for fitness purposes.
Woods swapped the rink for the track, becoming one of Canada’s hottest athletic prospects
‘I’d been missing the high of running pain-free for so long. When I got on the bike I got those highs again, and I wouldn’t have pain in my foot. It was just wonderful,’ he explained in the Bicycling interview.
He’d gone from being told he was destined for Olympic glory to working at a running shop and living back at his parents’ home in Ottawa. The heaviness of the cliche did not escape Woods.
‘I was like Uncle Rico’s character in Napoleon Dynamite, living in the past and talking about how far I could throw a football,’ he told Rapha earlier in the year.
Could cycling offer something more to Woods than just conditioning? Could it be his ride away from the terror of being an athletic manqué?
It’s just like riding a bike
Ignorance was Woods’s friend when it came to transitioning from running to cycling. He was 25-years-old and about to attempt becoming a professional in one of the toughest sports in the world
In 2011, following a foot break, Woods’s then-girlfriend, and now wife, Elly suggested trying to cycle professionally
‘We were both completely naive and ignorant about how hard it would be to become a world-class cyclist. I just assumed that because I had been a world-class runner at one point that I should be super-fast at becoming a world-class cyclist,’ he told the BBC last month.
Early in his nascent cycling career, Woods credits his incredible engine for dragging him into the front of races, saying being at the front is where one is able to grasp the key rules and behaviours of cycling the fastest.
However, learning comes in all forms, from navigating cross-winds to observing bike-handling skills of grizzled pros in front of him, and nothing hammers home a lesson like falling.
‘I committed every faux pas when I came in…my bike-handling took a long time to develop, and I got some pretty impressive scars as a result,’ he said in the BBC interview.
After becoming a pro cyclist in 2013, Woods made his Canada Olympic debut at Rio 2016
Scars that, for a time, no doubt healed faster than doubts Woods had about his latest sporting career. For the first couple of years, Woods wasn’t convinced that he’d made the right decision when he decided to get on the saddle.
‘When I was 27 there was one point when I was in Italy, lying on a cot in a mouldy hotel room, riding for this Continental team, thinking, “What the hell am I doing with my life?”,’ he told Bicycling.com
However, he persevered and in 2016 was signed by Cannondale Pro Cycling Team, racing his first World Tour event that year at the Tour Down Under, where he finished 5th overall. That year he also made the Canadian cycling Olympic team.
Heads were turned the following year when Woods raced in his first Grand Tour, the 2017 Giro d’Italia and finished 38th overall. His popularity got a huge boost four months later when he finished 7th overall in the Vuelta a España and 9th in the Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
Tragedy and breakthrough
Following a strong 2017, 2018 was Woods’s breakthrough year. He finished 2nd in the Liege-Bastogne-Liege race and third in the UCI Road World Championships road race, becoming Canada’s first male cyclist to make the podium in a World Championships road race in 34 years in the process.
On September 12, 2018, Woods became just the second Canadian to win a stage at the Vuelta a España.
On Sept 12, 2018, Woods became just the second Canadian to win a stage at Vuelta a España
The difficult Stage 17 was 157km and finished with a tough climb. Woods looked like he was completely spent, less cycling and more willing one foot up and down. The closer to the heavens he got, the more hellish the finish looked—the fog, the crowds, the rivals.
As well as the physical conditions, Woods was also suffering from emotional trauma. Earlier that year, his wife, Elly, the person who urged Woods to pursue a career in professional cycling and stood by him during the tough early years, was 37 weeks pregnant when their son, Hunter, tragically died. The couple found out the heart-wrenching news at the final check-up.
A month before the race, Woods revealed, Ellie also lost her father. These tragic moments stayed with Woods all throughout the race.
‘It’s a special moment for me. I was very moved on the finish line,’ he said after his victory. ’My coach was in the car and in the final 500 meters he told me on the radio to think about my family.’
Woods won the stage just months after his unborn son, Hunter, tragically died at 37 weeks old
At that point, it was almost impossible to see the riders through the fog. Woods was in danger of falling behind Dylan Teuns and David de la Cruz. There was just half a kilometer left to ride, but it was up a punishing 24 percent incline.
Woods’s coach’s words came just as Teuns tried to attack break off from the other two riders and surge into the outright lead.
The timing could not have been better. Woods, somehow, from somewhere, summoned one last bit of strength to counter-attack and cross the finish line first. He finished five seconds ahead of Teuns; ten seconds behind de la Cruz.
‘It’s been a very hard year. I was cracked on the finish line. I tried to stay calm, I tried to think of my family and to think of my little Hunter as an inspiration,’ Woods added, dedicating his win to his unborn son.
Woods is now in his early thirties, an age range that is traditionally a cyclist’s peak years, but he still feels his best is yet to come
A shot at glory
Woods is now in his early thirties, an age range that is traditionally a cyclist’s peak years, but he still feels his best is yet to come.
He told the BBC in June: ‘I feel too that in cycling I’m still improving, I’m still learning. And I’m still challenging myself, on a daily basis.’
He will ride in his first Tour de France this month and although Rigoberto Uran is his team’s main man, Woods is considered by many to be a promising back-up.
In just six years Woods has gone from a cycling ingenue to being in with a chance of becoming only the second Canadian to win a Grand Tour.
Looking at Woods’s sporting career, a pattern emerges: the man overcomes and evolves.