'It's wild, I don't think you'd write a better movie script' – Michael Woods completes the circle with 'crazy' Worlds comeback
The Canadian retired and became an ultra-rider last year but will ride in Montréal on Sunday
The return of a retiree to top-flight road competition is hardly unheard of – Anna van der Breggen is currently having a lot of success in the Women's WorldTour doing exactly that. But the below-the-radar approach Michael Woods has taken has both surprised and delighted fans as he prepares to finish his road career properly, the way he originally wanted to, in Montréal.
The 39-year-old (he'll be 40 in three weeks) will line up on the Canadian team for the men's elite road race on Sunday. It is, he says, a "movie script" ending to a story that 12 months ago left him devastated, after surgery on a hernia left him unable to go full circle and sign off in the Québéçois city.
Woods turned to ultra-racing at the end of last year, and has since ridden Unbound and Leadville, as well as tried his hand at SkiMo – ski mountaineering. But he kept the Worlds dream bubbling under all the while.
"I decided that I'd try and keep the the option open, but I didn't want to make any commitments until later on in the year because I wasn't sure how my fitness would be, not racing the WorldTour for an entire year," he told Cycling Weekly. "I kept training, and I'd say by the halfway point of this year, I felt like I wasn't in amazing shape, but I felt like if I did a big push, I could still get back to a level where I'd be competitive."
Woods has already made that happen, with a major six-week training block that piggybacked on a chunk of altitude work at Leadville. He's maintained ties with his former NSN Cycling team (Israel-Premier Tech when Woods was in contract), and has been training with riders including Jake Stewart, George Bennett and Corbin Strong. Woods was nervous going into the Québec-Montréal double-header two weeks ago, he says, but going on his performances, his former team-mates appear to have licked him into shape. He was 66th at the GP de Québec, but at the GP de Montréal, where he was 18th, "went as well as I could ever have expected," he said.
Predictably, the Canadian fans have welcomed Woods back like a returning hero – give or take a few grumbles, he says, about his Worlds selection – "But that's why I was really happy to have raced well in Montréal, I felt like I justified my my place," he said.
"It's always cool racing at those races, Montréal particularly. There's just so many fans, and you feel so much love. It's cool," he adds.
And the fans aren't all that's welcoming Woods back to the Canadian city; his Worlds ride will also be presided over by an enormous mural – of himself. To no small amount of ensuing controversy, Woods's former Israel-Premier Tech boss Sylvan Adams has the image of the rider painted on the side of a 10-storey building he owns. The controversy arose from the fact it was painted over a previous image of former Israel-Premier Tech rider Hugo Houle, who is a Quebeçois, no less.
Woods remains diplomatic, though. Adams, he says, changed his life by enabling him to turn pro, and says he considers the mural an honour, if a little surreal.
"It's a big mural – it's quite impressive. I didn't realise it was that big until I saw it," Woods told CW. "It's crazy, especially considering I started my career really in Montréal. I connected with Sylvan in 2013, and he really enabled me to become a pro cyclist. He gave me $15,000 and enabled me to quit my job when I first started, and it changed my life. So having started my career in Montréal and now coming back, finishing it here with a giant mural of me there, it's just wild. I don't think you'd write a better movie script."
Aside from his comeback-by-stealth, Woods has one more surprise in store when I ask him who is the big favourite for Sunday's men's race. After name-checking Isaac Del Toro of Mexico ("he's got to be one of the big favourites"), he adds, "Mathieu van der Poel's been playing things down, however, I think he's actually the guy to beat. The climb's hard, but I've seen him get over climbs that are much harder.
"Even a guy like Wout van Aert," adds Woods. "I mean, Wout's had such an amazing Vuelta. He's got to be a factor. I mean that's the beauty of there not being a [Tadej] Pogačar in this race – and it's unfortunate that he's not here – but the race opens up quite a bit."
As for his own aims for this last hurrah, Woods says: "A top-20 would be amazing. I think that'd be a really cool way to finish things off – and ideally try and be active in the race and show the maple leaf off… and have a great race."
The men's elite World Championships road races take place this Sunday, 27 September, with the women's the day before.