Runner-turned-cyclist wants to create iconic sports moment of his own
By Dan Plouffe
Mike Woods
Road Cycling
Age: 29
Local Club: The Cyclery
Olympics: First
Twitter: @rusty_woods
SCHEDULE
Sat. Aug. 6
Men’s road race
8:30 a.m. ET
Recently back home at his parents’ place, Mike Woods came across the program for the 2004 OFSAA Track-and-Field Championships. On the cover was a spectacular photo from the previous high school provincials, showing Woods crashing to the ground in agony, having just failed to lunge ahead of his fiercest rival at the finish line.
“I was so devastated on that day because I came second. I thought the world was going to end,” recalls the former Ottawa Lions Track-and-Field Club middle distance runner, laughing now at how trivial the defeat was in the grand scheme. “But to this day, people come up to me, and tell me how cool that race was, how exciting it was to watch.”
Voted most likely to go the Olympics by his graduating class at Hillcrest High School, Woods’ journey to the Games has featured more twists and turns than a switchback mountain road in the Alps.
Woods ran the mile in 3:57.48 at age 18 and set many records that still stand on the track, but repeated stress fractures and foot surgeries forced him to eventually accept the end of his running career.
Having cycled on occasion as cross-training, Woods started riding with groups locally and later decided to try cycling competitively. He had standout aerobic capacity thanks to run training, but had to learn how to handle a bike and the intricacies of team race strategy.
The 29-year-old is now in his first year competing for the Cannondale Pro Cycling team – which participates in the planet’s biggest stage races such as the Tour de France – and will race for Canada in the men’s road race at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
Woods, now living in Spain with his wife Elly, has accumulated an endless supply of practically unbelievable memories along the way, which the talented blogger recounts masterfully on rustywoodscycling.com.
“There’s this story you can tell from almost every race,” highlights the University of Michigan English grad. “It’s crazy because the stages in a stage race, or in a single day classic, are so long, there’s so many different elements involved in the race, with 150 to 200 riders, the course and the weather always changing.
“Cycling, it’s so dynamic that there are so many little stories that come out of the woodwork like seeing something funny happen, and big stories like seeing big crashes.
“I think that’s one of the things I love the most, especially compared to running, where it’s so mathematical.”
One thing Woods most definitely misses about running, however, is that when he wipes out, all he’d probably need was a band-aid or two.
“Oh man, what I would pay for only having the pain of falling on a track, versus falling on a bike,” smiles Woods, who recently got caught up in a major pileup during a July 14 race in Poland and landed hard on his hip.
“This last impact, I crashed at 68 miles an hour,” notes the athlete who placed 5th for the general classification in his World Tour debut at the Tour Down Under early this year. “Your mobility’s affected afterwards. Everything’s uncomfortable. You don’t sleep well. Even sitting on the toilet doesn’t feel good.”
Thankfully, he says, riding a bicycle is not a terribly painful endeavour at present. Woods didn’t miss any training, though it’s caused him to revisit his objectives for Rio slightly.
“Before the crash, my aim was the top-10 and have an outside shot at the medals,” indicates the vaunted climbing specialist who excels on terrain like the mountainous Rio course. “I think that is still a possibility but I’m just going to go in and relax and play things by feel because of the hip.”
Woods is “really excited” nonetheless to become an Olympian and follow in the footsteps of childhood idols who created iconic Canadian Olympic moments – like Ottawa’s Glenroy Gilbert and Donovan Bailey blowing away the host Americans to win 4×100 m relay gold in Atlanta, or Simon Whitfield charging to victory in the final moments of the triathlon in Sydney.
“Those memories really implanted themselves in my mind, and really pushed me into athletics, and ultimately cycling, in pursuit of this dream of one day going to the Olympics. I wanted to go so bad as a kid,” reflects Woods, expressing his gratitude to the local cycling community and all those involved in his success.
“What I’m looking forward to most going forward is hopefully impacting somebody in that way,” he adds. “If I could have a performance that inspires other kids to get involved in sports, and chase their dreams, that’s something I’m really hoping to achieve.”
Advice to young aspiring Olympians:
“Make sure that you’re always having fun. Not every sport’s always going to be fun all the time, but realizing that what you’re doing is true to your passion, and not something that you’re doing because your parents want you to do it, or because somebody else wants you to do. Cycling, particularly, is a really hard sport. Obviously the Olympics were a huge goal of mine getting into that, but really, what’s kept me in cycling, and the reason I’m going to the Olympics is because it is fun, and it’s something I love and I enjoy, and is a passion.”