Michael Woods, Hugo Houle and the tragic losses behind their career-defining victories
The two riders took their feelings of grief and transformed them in competition
The links between Michael Woods and Hugo Houle can seem as numerous as those on a bike chain. They’re Olympians, teammates on Israel-Premier Tech and, as of this past summer, both Grand Tour stage winners. Another similarity they share—one that doesn’t catch your eye like a master link—is that they’ve faced tragic personal losses. These losses then had effects in races.
As Houle rode to his Tour de France stage win in July, you knew he was thinking of his brother Pierrik. With about 500 m to go before Hugo crossed the finish line in Foix, he seemed to be fishing out the cross he wears around his neck, only in races, to keep the memory of his brother close to him. Pierrik was killed in a hit-and-run as he was out for a jog in December 2012. Not long after that, Hugo vowed to continue to race for his brother and to one day win a stage in the race the two used to watch as young boys, rooting for daring riders trying to win out of breakaways.
Just behind Houle, Michael Woods came across the line in third. He had helped Houle get his gap ahead of the breakaway group before Mur de Péguère. Woods also had marked Matteo Jorgenson to keep the Movistar rider from catching up to Houle. When I spoke with Woods about Houle’s win this past summer, I asked the Ottawa rider about coming through tragedy as an athlete. In 2018, roughly two months before that year’s Vuelta a España, Michael Woods’s wife, Elly, gave birth to a stillborn baby boy who the couple named Hunter. “For me particularly—and I imagine this was the case with Hugo—the loss just gives you another layer of accountability and another layer of motivation,” Woods said. “When we lost Hunter, our son, I really dedicated the rest of my life to him in many ways. It’s a different situation than Hugo’s brother, but my wife and I, after we lost Hunter, we realized how lucky we were to just be alive, to get to experience life because Hunter was just about to make it there and he didn’t. We told it to ourselves that we owed it to him to do things to our best—as cheesy as it sounds: to live life to its fullest. So with that idea in my head, that’s how I tackled cycling after that. There’s a distinct line between how I started to perform after Hunter’s death and before. Before we lost Hunter, I was knocking at the door occasionally and occasionally getting decent results in the WorldTour. After his death, I just started being one of these guys who was consistently competing at the highest level of the sport.”
“It was a massive moment of catharsis.”
On Stage 17 of the 2018 Vuelta a España, Woods, who was on EF Education First Drapac presented by Cannondale overtook Dylan Teuns with a little more than 500 m to go on the steep Alto del Balcón de Bizkaia. It was a long, hard half kilometre to the finish. Sport director Juanma Garate yelled into the race radio, “Do it for your family!” Woods persevered to the line and took his first Grand Tour win.
I asked Woods if the victory changed how he viewed Hunter’s death. “I don’t know if it changed my relationship with the tragedy,” he said. “But it was a massive moment of catharsis. For two months, I hadn’t really talked about his death other than with family and close friends. I obviously cried and had a tough time in the week following his death, but instead of really focusing on my grief, I focused a lot on the training that I felt I needed to do to honour what my wife and I said we’d do—to do things to our best, to their fullest. Also, I didn’t know what else to do in terms of trying to make people feel better, including my wife and my family. I wanted to do something. Obviously, I couldn’t bring him back, but I wanted to make everyone feel a bit better. So I saw winning a big race and honouring him as a way to do that. When I was actually able to achieve that goal and get the victory, it was a massive unleashing of emotions. To this day, when I think back on that stage, it’s easy for me to get a bit teary.”
In Houle’s post race interview in Foix, he got choked up as he discussed the significance of the win. Houle, as his friend and former roommate Antoine Duchesne describes him, is usually quite analytical and rational, not as emotional as Duchesne. But in that interview, Houle’s tears were not only understandable, but unstoppable. “There are a lot of reasons for that outpouring of emotions,” Woods said. “It’s not just the loss of the person. It’s a big win. For me, winning that Vuelta stage was my first WorldTour win. That, in itself, is an accomplishment that a lot of riders never achieve, but a lot of riders dream of their entire careers. There’s a lot of investment emotionally and physically just into that act. But then you add, on top of it, a loss and this commitment to doing that very thing for someone you loved and cared about only takes it to another level. I think I cried everyday for about a week after I won that Vuelta stage.”
In September, Houle reflected on his Tour de France stage win. “Pierrik’s death is part of my life, which is why I still talk about it,” Hugo said. “I made the goal to try to win a stage for him and then I did. That brought me even more emotions when I won the stage. I don’t think anything will come close to this, whatever I win again in my life, on the emotional side.”
After the 2018 Vuelta stage, Woods found some momentum. He was third at the world championship road race in Innsbruck, Austria. In the years that have followed, there has been another stage win at the Vuelta, as well as at Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour de Romandie. He’s won Milano-Torino and la Route d’Occitanie, too. Houle had great form following this year’s Tour, which he took to the Arctic Race of Norway where he finished second overall. Then, Houle was done. But the time the Quebec GPs rolled around, his legs were cooked. Following his home races, he took a break to get ready for the next season. “Now I have to set new goals for the future,” Houle said. “Everyday, I would head out and train and I would think about Pierrik. Now, I have to make new goals and find new ways to stay motivated. But the win just brought so much happiness. As much as it hurt when we left us, the moment of the win became more intense and more crazy. It’s what made that day so special.”
