Woods returns to Utah with unfinished business

Michael Woods is returning to the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah after a two-year absence with some unfinished business left on the table. Woods won a stage here in 2015 and finished second overall to current EF Education First-Drapac teammate Joe Dombrowski, but the 31-year-old Canadian told Cyclingnews that he's a much different rider than the one who raced Utah in 2015.

After the 2015 season, Woods jumped to the WorldTour with Cannondale, the precursor of his EF-Drapac team. Since then the rider who came to cycling relatively late after a collegiate running career has finished 5th overall at the 2016 Tour Down Under in his first race with the team, was seventh in the 2017 Vuelta a Espana, was second at Liege-Bastogne-Liege this year and second in a stage of the Giro d'Italia in May.

"I'm definitely a different bike rider than when I came here in 2015," Woods said. "It was good riding those courses just a few days ago and reliving the race from 2015 and remembering all the things I didn't know and all the things I did know, and just being excited about what I can do now."

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Woods said his greatest asset now is his perspective and his much-improved ability to be in the right place in the peloton at the right time.

"I'm really good relative to where I was in 2015," he said. "I see myself in the peloton, where I am position-wise. I was terrible at positioning, even in this race where positioning is not that important.

"I started the climb to Snowbird too far back," he said. "I started Empire Pass not in the greatest position, but this time around I've got really good guys here and my positioning skills have improved a ton."

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