Michael Woods faces different races at the same time
Throughout July, Michael Woods was always able to stay focused on the major tasks at hand – the Tour de France, the Olympic road race and the birth of his son. But while he was in Tokyo for the Games, he really faced two overlapping races. On a video call with his wife, Elly, he saw her in a full hospital gown. She said the baby was probably coming in the next 24 hours. “I was really pissed off at myself when I thought I’d miss the birth. But she managed to hold on for a few days,” he joked. He arrived in time for the birth of the couple’s second child, William “Willy” Woods.
As for the Olympic road race, Michael Woods was of two minds. “I raced as best I could. I raced really well, but to finish so close to the podium and not have a medal is disappointing,” he said. On the final major climb, Mikuni Pass, he got away from the group with Tadej Pogačar and Brandon Mcnulty. Woods was happy with the move at first. Like the trio that included Woods, Alejandro Valverde, Romain Bardet at the finale of the world championships in Innsbruck, Austria in 2018, Woods hoped his group in Tokyo would go to the line. Pogačar, however, went too hard. “He just nuked it,” Woods said. “He went so hard that he nuked himself. I couldn’t drive the pace because I still hadn’t recovered from the attack. That’s what enabled the rest of the field to come back.”
In late August, Woods was in Adorra preparing for the latter part of his season. He was looking toward the one-day races in Italy, such as Milano-torino, which he won in 2019, and Il Lombardia. With his newborn at home along with his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Maxine, the coffee stops on his training rides were pretty short, almost as if he were always racing to get back home.