Briton Harrison Wood 'struggling to understand' World Tour team snub as he returns to Continental ranks

Harrison Wood is one of the British riders who was part of the World Tour this year but despite his young age of 24, he was unable to secure his future at the top level of cycling. He was left confused and disappointed with the end of his stint at Cofidis, but believes he will have better chances of proving his own quality with Portuguese Sabgal-Anicolor team.

"I have so much respect and a lot of love for the people at Cofidis with the team atmosphere and riders that we had. It was great for them to put me in some of these really big races but then I sort of think it almost backfired putting me in them as it meant I couldn’t ever do the slightly smaller races to try and make results and really show myself," Wood said in words to CyclingWeekly.

Wood had previously discussed the issue with UCI points for domestiques such as him. He connects the dots perfectly in this interview, happy with the opportunities he got at the French team, but that his good calendar also meant he was also competing against top riders and largely in a support role - which meant conquering UCI points was very difficult, which in turn made him less appealing to keep in the team.

"That’s definitely one thing I’ve been struggling to understand with Cofidis," he admits. "I ended up doing all these big races so the team must have had a lot of confidence to put me in these from the start and been happy with how I was going. So I guess that’s what I don’t understand as if they’d wanted me to do results then I should maybe have been doing the slightly smaller races. It left me a bit confused at the end."

Ultimately he was not able to then get a contract at World Tour, but the Briton's talent was recognized. He signed a one-year contract with Sabgal - Anicolor who has built a block to race international events, and should do the same with Wood being one of the leaders for the 2025 season.

"I had the opportunity from Sabgal–Anicolor and thought actually I could benefit from being somewhere else where the team might help me in races a lot and I can repay the favour at other points and I can then get some results with the aim of moving back to the WorldTour at another point," he explains.

It is a plan with potential, and he is quite positive that he can do this taking into account the team's structure and plans: "If I'm honest the team we have got isn’t a Continental team roster, it's more like a Pro Continental squad. It’s the equipment that helps with that too, we’ve got Factor bikes, lightweight Princeton wheels, good kit, altitude training camps. So the team is like a higher level setup just with a Continental license."