Stages of the 2021 Tour de France where Michael Woods could shine

Michael Woods is Israel Start-up Nation’s protected rider for this year’s Tour de France, the team’s 2021 addition having come off two consecutive top-5 results in Swiss WorldTour stage races. This season Woods has worn the leader’s jersey in two stages races, both following stage wins, and claimed the mountains jersey of the Tour de Suisse on the final stage. But what can he do in his second Tour de France?

You can watch the 2021 Tour de France on FloBikes.

Woods’ first Tour de France was two seasons ago when he was with EF Education First, and it didn’t go swimmingly for the man from Ottawa. Even though he helped teammate Rigoberto Uran to seventh spot and placed seventh on Stage 17 in the mountains, he crashed on Stage 11 and had to race the latter half of La Grande Boucle with broken ribs. Woods’ 32nd place in the 2018 Tour is sandwiched between two 34th spots in Vuelta a Españas on his palmares, each distinguished by a stage victory.

The 108th edition is set up nicely for the Canadian, as the finishes of the first two stages are on his kind of terrain. Stage 1 ends on the Cat.3 Cote la Fosse aux Loups, 3 km of 5.7 percent. But Stage 2‘s concluding clamber, the Mur de Bretagne, is 2 km at almost 7 percent. There’ll be a selection on the first climb of the Mur peaking with 18 km to race, and fans can expect, barring disaster, that Woods will not only be in with a shout for the stage victory, but he will also never be outside the top-25 again. ISUN will hope that Chris Froome can help set up Woods and Dan Martin on these opening days.

However, Rusty’s Achilles heel will be exposed only three days later on Stage 5‘s first of two 25+ km time trials. Woods took the Tour de Romandie’s yellow jersey into the 16.1 km concluding time trial and emerged in fifth place. A month later, Woods managed to cling tenaciously to his sixth place at the Tour de Suisse in a penultimate-day time trial. Even on a time trial centred around a climb, Woods was slower than around 75% of that day’s GC top-20. He will lose time on Wednesday, June 30, but how much?

This loss isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Woods will be freer to fly in the coming mountain stages, with Stage 9‘s summit finish the first opportunity to spread his wings. Week Two visits the Alps, and although there are no summit finishes there, the double climb of Ventoux on Stage 11 might be where his climbing abilities start pulling him back up over a few of the fellows who were faster in the first chrono.

The final week in the Pyrenees is where Woods is as likely to take a stage win as he will be on Stages 1 and 2. He won’t be a danger to the podium aspirants, especially with an even longer time trial awaiting on Stage 20. On consecutive days, Stages 17 and 18, the HC-rated Col du Portet and Luz Ardiden play the role of summit finishes, the latter one arriving hard on the heels of another HC beast, the Tourmalet.

Rusty fans can fantasize about Woods dashing out of the Jumbo-Visma or Ineos-led yellow jersey group and slurping up the coveted €5000 Souvenir Jacques Goddet prize at the crest of Tourmalet– “Vini Fantini on me, lads!” But even better would be a mountain top win.

Here’s the good news about the Stage 20 time trial: If we look back at all of Woods’ Grand Tours, we find that he doesn’t lose many places in final week time trials. In fact, the most he’s ever dropped is two places–8th to 10th in Stage 16 of the 2017 Vuelta, where he went on to claim 7th overall. The next year at the Vuelta he even bumped up a spot in the 32-km race against the clock on Stage 16.

This might well be the year that Woods attains his second career Grand Tour top-10. Can he also be the first Canadian to win a stage since Steve Bauer in 1988?