Canadian fans and Michael Woods’ favourite Tour de France stage
During the first week of the Tour de France, the law was following Michael Woods around. The rider from Ottawa, who was participating in his first Tour, kept seeing a fan dressed as a Mountie. Two days after the Tour, as Woods recovered in Girona, Spain, from the fatigue that came from racing for three weeks and as he allowed the two broken ribs he’d sustained in a crash to heal, he also remembered fans on a particularly difficult stage. Woods started Stage 18, broken ribs and all, aiming to win. On the Col du Galibier, the final climb, Nairo Quintana attacked out of the lead group that also contained Romain Bardet and Woods. The Canadian couldn’t follow, and his hopes for a stage victory disappeared. As Woods continued up the climb, he came across roughly seven Canadian fans who ran alongside him. “Even though I was in the box, having been dropped by Quintana and Barttet, I still managed to give them a thumbs up and a smile,” he said.
While Woods had targeted days with significant climbs, such as Stage 18 with the Galibier and Stage 6 that finished on La Planche des Belles Filles, those days came with some disappointment, even though they suited him and he put in respectable performances. His favourite stage was Stage 2. “The team time trial was an amazing experience because I got to be part of a group that went super fast,” he said. “I certainly wasn’t contributing as much as some of the others, but I finished with the group. We did an amazing job of working together. That high of accomplishing something together, rolling so fast together and being celebrated for our efforts together after was just a really nice thing.”— MP