No Giro for Woods, but is he Tour de France bound?
The Ottawa native will not start in Italy. Missing one Grand Tour could mean he'll attend another
Canadian Cycling Magazine has learned that Michael Woods will not be racing his third consecutive Giro d’Italia, the first Grand Tour of the season beginning May 11 in Bologna. Woods has finished all four of his career Grand Tours, two editions of the Giro and Vuelta a España in two seasons.
Currently Woods is racing the Tour de Romandie, where he was 40th on Thursday and sits 15th on GC after a prologue and two stages. A fifth in Liège-Bastogne-Liège was the highlight of his Ardennes campaign.
Could Woods’ absence from the Giro mean that he is destined to race his debut Tour de France in July? EF Education First’s Colombian Rigoberto Uran is slated to race in France and hopes to avoid the crash injuries that caused him to abandon last year’s edition after coming runner-up in 2017. EF Education has also penciled in Uran’s compatriot, Daniel Felipe MartÃnez for the Tour, along with Tejay van Garderen, who was been fifth in the Tour twice.
Surely after four Grand Tours in two years, Woods will be racing at least one in 2019. Perhaps Woods will be Education First’s main man at the Vuelta a España. Last year, he won an emotional stage on the wicked Balcón de Bizkaia climb.
