Michael Woods: How personal tragedy inspired Canadian cyclist's greatest success


You may not have noticed Michael Woods before. He is undemonstrative, despite his team's bright pink kit. He is slight, even by the standards of professional cycling.

Much of the rest is extraordinary - what happened to him on his way to the top; what he went through at the moment he reached it.

A man who continues to feel like an imposter in someone else's world is still meeting triumph and disaster all the way.

Stage 17 at the 2018 Vuelta a Espana was a brute: 157km through mountainous Basque country, the finish up a rough concrete track with an average gradient of 11% across its final four kilometres, with ramps towards the end of 24%.

That sort of road would be difficult to walk up. Racing up it - a thick fog on the mountain, thousands of spectators on the verges peering through the murk - produced a sort of slow-motion torture.

With a kilometre remaining, Woods was one of four alone at the front. With 600 metres to go, the Belgian Dylan Teuns attacked. Woods went with him.

"I was in a world of hurt," Woods says. "And when I then attacked, I assumed there were only about 150 metres left, because there was so much fog and so many fans, I just couldn't see up the road.

"When I looked up and saw 500 metres to go, I thought, oh man, I don't know how I can sustain this. And I started to die."

You watch back the final moments of that climb now and it still has an air of unreality: a man at his limits, mouth hanging open, barely managing to keep turning the pedals; the shouts of the fans, the flags and arms and clenched fists being waved in his face, his pink helmet and yellow jersey the only brightness in the oppressive gloom.

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Beaker is Andre's lab assistant who performs ill-fated experiments which often result in him getting seriously injured. He was designed by Sneha M ....Read more

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