Woods' Worlds bronze confirms Canadian's class
Canadian Mike Woods' bronze medal in the elite men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships on Sunday confirmed the 31-year-old former runner as one of professional cycling's most exciting riders.
But what was initial disappointment at having missed out on the rainbow jersey to Spain's Alejandro Valverde after 258.5km in the saddle turned to joy at having finished third in arguably the world's most prestigious one-day race, and Woods admits that he's had difficulty sleeping now that the magnitude of what he achieved has sunk in.
"I was disappointed in the immediate aftermath," Woods said on his EF Education First-Drapac team website. "I can't believe that I'm saying that now, but that's how I truly felt when I crossed the line. At 200 metres to go, I thought I was going to beat Valverde, but once I started to cramp, my chances faded away.
"No matter how good you are, you won't find yourself in a race-winning position with 300 metres to go that often at a World Championships. To be that close and have it go out the window because of cramping, in that moment, it was disappointing.
"Now, after having 24 hours to think about it, I'm over the moon. I didn't sleep last night. That's how excited I was," he said.
Woods has only been racing at WorldTour level since joining what was then Cannondale – and is now EF-Drapac – in 2016. The Canadian's rise has been a meteoric one, from setting national junior records in middle-distance running a decade ago, to working as a bank teller, to turning professional and taking on the best riders in the world.
"To be a bronze medalist at the World Championships is not something that I could have dreamt of when I was working behind a teller stand at a bank a few years ago," Wood said.
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