{"id":78206,"date":"2025-08-18T20:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/78206\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T20:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:02:08","slug":"ottawas-michael-woods-announces-retirement-from-cycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/78206\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa’s Michael Woods announces retirement from cycling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ottawa’s Michael Woods, the first\u00a0athlete to both run a sub-four-minute mile and complete\u00a0the Tour de France, announced he’s retiring from professional cycling at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old made the announcement\u00a0in a blog post Monday.\u00a0In it, Woods detailed the “significant” toll 11 years of professional cycling has taken on his health and\u00a0family life, citing those\u00a0as his reasons for calling it a career.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

“The time I have spent away from my family has been long,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

\"Canadian<\/p>\n

Woods cycles to the finish line to win the ninth stage of the 110th edition of the Tour de France in July 2023. The Canadian rider announced his plans to step away from the sport Monday. (Thomas Samson\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In his post, Woods describes\u00a0how he was unable to\u00a0kiss his kids when he picked them up from school to avoid getting sick before a race.<\/p>\n

“Every aspect of my life has been examined and studied to maximize my ability to ride a bike. That all-encompassing pursuit I have loved and have no regrets doing, but it is something that can only be sustained for so long,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

“For the reasons mentioned above, I have made the decision to retire from professional road cycling at the end of this season.”<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Woods began cycling professionally with\u00a0Team Garneau-Quebecor\u00a0in 2013 after a\u00a0foot injury put an end to his track and field career.<\/p>\n

He has ridden with the Israel-Premier Tech team for the past five seasons. He won\u00a0a bronze medal at the 2018 World Championships, and competed in the Olympics in 2016, 2021\u00a0and 2024.<\/p>\n

WATCH\u00a0| Michael Woods talks pivoting to cycling from track and field:<\/p>\n

As he bids farewell to professional cycling, Woods thanked\u00a0his family, his coach\u00a0of 12 years Paulo Saldanha,\u00a0his teammates\u00a0and others.<\/p>\n

“I was able to realize that goal. I managed to become one of the best cyclists in the world, and it is a journey I am damn proud of,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

Woods said he plans to explore\u00a0new areas of endurance sport, but said more details will come later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ottawa’s Michael Woods, the first\u00a0athlete to both run a sub-four-minute mile and complete\u00a0the Tour de France, announced he’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,59783,59784,85,2845],"class_list":["post-78206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-michael-woods","tag-professional-cycling","tag-sports","tag-tour-de-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}