From retirement to Rainbow Jersey? Michael Woods ready to seize unexpected Montreal Worlds farewell: “It’s weird to now realise I’m not an imposter”

Michael Woods thought his final chance to race on home roads had disappeared with the end of his WorldTour career. Twelve months later, the 39-year-old is preparing for one final shot at the Rainbow Jersey in Montreal, with Canada's original leader Derek Gee-West now ruled out of Sunday's World Championship road race.

The Canadian retired from the professional peloton at the end of 2025 after a season disrupted by crashes, injury and an inguinal hernia, which ultimately denied him the farewell he had hoped for at the GP de Montréal.

Rather than disappearing from competition altogether, Woods spent 2026 racing on gravel and mountain bikes, maintaining enough form to keep an unlikely World Championship possibility alive. Seventh at the Canadian road championships convinced him he could still contribute at the highest level, before an 18th-place finish at the recent GP de Montréal made him the best Canadian across the line.

Speaking to Cycling News ahead of the World Championships, Woods explained how the opportunity had gradually come back into view.

“I really wanted to end my career in Montreal,” Woods admitted. “Last year I couldn't do that because I had a hernia and I had to have surgery, and I was devastated. It was like such an anticlimactic ending to a career. Then when I looked at the selection criteria, and realised that I still had scored enough points last year to be eligible, I thought that if I maintained a certain level of fitness and really felt like I could prove that, then I wanted to go to these races.”

Woods' return has come without any desire to reverse his retirement. By the end of last season, the former Tour de France stage winner had grown tired of the relentless WorldTour calendar. A crash at Milano-Torino, suffered while taking off a leg warmer, left him with a broken collarbone after an altitude camp in Tenerife had put him in strong early-season condition.

“I was pretty jaded by the end of last year,” he recalled. “Last year particularly, I had my hernia, I had crashed. I went to an altitude camp in Tenerife, got in amazing shape, really felt like I was going to have a good year, and then crashed taking a leg warmer off in Milano-Torino, broke my collarbone, woke up in an ambulance. After that, I was over it.

“But this year has rekindled my love for the sport, made me realise how much I love racing. Watching the races on TV makes me realise how beautiful the sport was, and makes me really proud of what I did. I haven't missed it at all, but it's been a great year.”

His 2026 programme has included events such as The Traka, Sea Otter Classic, Unbound and Leadville rather than another season built around WorldTour points and contracts.

“I've definitely been retired from the WorldTour. The WorldTour is a different beast, 70 race days, it's not just performing once or twice every few weeks, it's just this grind. So I've been retired from that,” he explained.

“Doing what I did this year has been so fun. It has been, I'd say, a retirement. I'm doing exactly what I want to do whenever I want to, which has been sweet. So I've definitely retired. But fortunately, it's kept me in good enough shape to be competitive at a high level.”

For Woods, Montreal also closes a loop stretching back to his unconventional arrival in professional cycling. A former elite middle-distance runner, he did not follow the junior and under-23 pathway taken by most riders around him. By the time he reached the WorldTour, he was already well into his twenties and learning a sport many of his rivals had been immersed in for years.

“I used to feel like such an imposter at these races because I came in so late,” Woods said. “I didn't do years of racing junior and then U23, or accruing relationships. I just came into the WorldTour and knew nothing."

“It felt like I was just like playing, this is going to date me, but like Age of Empires when everything is just dark. I didn't know anything," he added. “And now I come here and I know everybody. I know guys on every single team. I'm chatting with everybody, staff included, there's directors that I used to race with. It's weird to now realise I'm not an imposter.”

Woods leaves the sport with four Grand Tour stage wins, including victory atop the Puy de Dôme at the 2023 Tour de France, and a World Championship bronze medal from Innsbruck in 2018.

The original Canadian plan had Woods working for Gee-West. That changed when the Lidl-Trek rider withdrew from the World Championships following his crash at the GP de Montréal, with Guillaume Boivin called into the squad as his replacement.

Woods now heads into Sunday's road race without the leader around whom his role had initially been built. “I really want to go as far into the race as I can, or even try and do something special,” he said. “I just want the national team and the maple leaf to have success at this race.”

The Montreal course offers little respite. The elite men's race covers more than 270 kilometres and around 3,800 metres of climbing, with repeated ascents around Mount Royal expected to steadily reduce the field.

Woods knows those roads well and arrives having just finished inside the top 20 at the GP de Montréal, eight years after taking bronze in the World Championship road race in Innsbruck. There will be no second retirement reversal afterwards. Woods has already ruled out replacing the WorldTour grind with a full professional gravel programme and says his days of chasing contracts, points and results are finished.

His competitive cycling career looked to have ended without the Canadian farewell he wanted in 2025. Instead, it now gets one final afternoon on Mount Royal, with a home World Championships and an unexpectedly open role in Canadian colours.