"I had to take it during the race" - Michael Woods explains viral World Championship fuelling

There was a lot of drama in the early part of the men's elite road race as big names such as Julian Alaphilippe, Mattias Skjelmose, Joao Almeida and Mikel Landa among others abandoned. One of the more viral moments though, came from Canada's Michael Woods.

With 200km to go, Woods started tucking into a bowl of some unknown substance using a spoon, being forced to free wheel no handed as a result. Social media quickly began circulating these images with people guessing what exactly Woods was having for his lunch. Was it pasta? Was it rice? Well, as it turned out, it was neither, as the Canadian explained to FloBikes post-race.

His lunch was a portion of sodium bicarbonate. "That's right," Woods explained after finishing the World Championship road race in 54th position. "I'm in favour of using it, but the problem is that it only works for 5 hours. So I had to take it during the race after an hour."

Finishing nearly 13 minutes down on Rainbow Jersey winner Tadej Pogacar, the help of sodium bicarbonate couldn't quite fire Woods to a World Championships victory in Zurich. "Oh, Tadej is just the best rider in the world," the 37-year-old concedes honestly. "No one could follow and it was a super difficult race. Nothing more."