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<\/p>\n\u201cIf the world championships were anywhere else but Montreal, I wouldn\u2019t be doing them,\u201d Woods said. \u201cIt\u2019s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity \u2026 it has such, such big meaning to me that, yeah, I had to do this.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s the last one. For sure, it\u2019s the last one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ottawa native, now residing in Andorra and Chelsea, Que., will also compete in this weekend\u2019s Grand Prix Cycliste events in Quebec City and Montreal as a tune-up for the UCI World Tour\u2019s flagship race on Sept. 27.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a scenario Woods couldn\u2019t have imagined when he walked away from the sport bruised and disillusioned some 12 months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was almost jaded on the sport by the time I announced my retirement. It had become a job,\u201d said Woods, who rode for the since-rebranded Israel-Premier Tech, during a phone interview last month. \u201cI wasn\u2019t recovering well; I wasn\u2019t performing as well as I would have liked to. I definitely didn\u2019t end on a good note last year, especially with the hernia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt left a bad taste in my mouth, and I wasn\u2019t happy with how I finished.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woods searched for himself in the months that followed, questioning past decisions and the route he\u2019d taken, until he embarked on a calendar of bucket-list races that reignited his passion for racing.<\/p>\n
Rather than grinding through another professional road cycling season, Woods turned to gravel biking, mountain biking and ski mountaineering (skimo), enjoying grassroots racing over the cutthroat UCI World Tour.<\/p>\n
He notably competed in the French Alps at Pierra Menta \u2014 known as the skimo Tour de France \u2014 the renowned Leadville Trail mountain bike race in Colorado and Levi\u2019s GranFondo in California.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realize now how lucky I was to be doing what I was doing over the last decade,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel very fortunate and even more passionate \u2014 and love for the sport \u2014 than I have had in years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The calendar also helped Woods stay fit for the challenge ahead. Thoughts of competing at the Montreal world championships first crept into his head around March or April, and an encouraging seventh-place finish at the Canadian national road race in June gave him the confidence to give it a go.<\/p>\n
Woods admitted he felt nervous about coming back, noting the gruelling nature of each event, even by pro cycling standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree of the hardest races in the World Tour calendar,\u201d he said. \u201cI could get my ass kicked and tell you at the end of it that this was a terrible idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the opportunity to experience his long-sought full-circle moment was impossible to pass up.<\/p>\n
An accomplished middle-distance runner \u2014 he was the first person to run a sub-four-minute mile and complete the Tour de France \u2014 Woods turned to cycling in 2012 after a recurring stress fracture in his left foot cut his competitive running career short.<\/p>\n
He recalls starting bike racing with Tuesday night criteriums at \u201cLes Mardis cyclistes\u201d in Montreal\u2019s Lachine borough, and riding alongside longtime coach Paulo Saldanha, who followed him on a moped up and down Mount Royal \u201ccountless times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woods signed his first professional contract with Garneau-Qu\u00e9becor in 2013, and a year later finished in the lead group at the Montreal stop on the World Tour.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a result the climbing specialist credits with jump-starting a career that has since produced a Tour de France stage victory in 2023 and three Spanish Vuelta stage wins (2018, 2020 and 2024).<\/p>\n
A decade after that breakthrough, a giant mural along the world championships route celebrates his latest Vuelta triumph \u2014 but not without stirring local controversy.<\/p>\n
The original mural, commissioned by building owner and former Israel-Premier Tech co-owner Sylvan Adams a year ago, depicted former teammate Hugo Houle and his 2022 Tour de France stage victory, the first by a Quebec-born rider.<\/p>\n
But Houle left Adams\u2019 team in December, and the artwork now celebrates Woods, who declined to comment when asked about the mural\u2019s replacement.<\/p>\n
His focus, instead, is on savouring the Montreal homecoming he once thought was lost.<\/p>\n
As for what\u2019s next following the world championships, Woods wasn\u2019t entirely sure. A return to professional road cycling is out of the question, but racing in some form, he says, won\u2019t end any time soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love competing, I love riding my bike,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll ride my bike for the rest of my life; I\u2019ll run and do trail racing and other events for the rest of my life, I know that for a fact.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2026.<\/p>\n
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIf the world championships were anywhere else but Montreal, I wouldn\u2019t be doing them,\u201d Woods said. \u201cIt\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-890610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}