Champion again: Michael Woods wins second consecutive La Route d’Occitanie title

For the second year in a row, Michael Woods is La Route d’Occitanie champion. Woods wasn’t challenged for his orange leader’s jersey on Sunday’s final stage, which Simon Carr of EF Education-Easypost took in a sprint over Lars van den Berg.

Woods triumphed in 2023 the same way he did in 2022–by earning the queen stage honours on the French stage race’s penultimate day and then hanging tough to take the crown.

Although Israel-Premier Tech hasn’t released its official Tour de France roster, it’s easy to see that Rusty is taking the same route to La Grande Boucle that he did last year: Tour de Romandie, CIC-Mont Ventoux (where he was runner-up) and La Route d’Occitanie. At this point we can expect him to line up in Bilbao, Spain on Canada Day.

Woods now has 13 victories on his palmares going back to 2015.