Deep fatigue and pride for Grand Tour debutant

Several days after he crossed the line in Rome on Sunday, it still hurts Harrison Wood to walk upstairs.

That’s just one of the prices a pro cyclist pays for riding the Giro d’Italia – more than 2,000 miles in three weeks over some of the highest roads in Europe.

Wood, 23, now back home in Torquay, is in what he describes as ‘deep fatigue’, and it will stay in his body until at least next week.

But the former Torquay Boys Grammar School pupil and Mid-Devon CC starlet is hardly a cripple, he’s getting around better each day and he’ll need to.

Wood’s French team Cofidis want him back in action in an important one-day race in Switzerland next Friday (June 7).

Modest as always, Wood merely says he’s ‘very pleased’ at the way he rode in Italy. He’s doing himself a disservice. He should be ecstatic.

In his first ‘Grand Tour’, it would have been an achievement just to finish. In fact, he was 65th out of 142 survivors in the fastest Giro in history, won in breathtaking style by the brilliant Slovenian star Tadej Pogacar.

“It was a step into the unknown for me,” said Wood.

“Definitely I wanted to finish, but I also wanted to do something in the race, like get in a proper breakaway, not just a soft one for the TV cameras.”

He could hardly have known that his chance would come on the ‘Queen’ Stage 15, a 222K monster from the shores of Lake Garda to the ski station above Livigno. It included more than 18,000 feet of climbing.

Wood stayed away with a dwindling group of companions until well beyond halfway, but later confirmed: “It was the hardest day I’ve spent on the bike – ever.”

He managed several other excellent performances, finishing 29th on one stage, and helping his team to pull off a valuable stage victory and earn many vital WorldTour ranking points.

Suitably impressed with his ability to handle the demands of the Giro, Cofidis will soon confirm their plans for the rest of his season.

It won’t include the Tour de France this year, but it might feature 2024’s final Grand Tour, Spain’s Vuelta, in August.

“In the last week of the Giro, when everybody is so tired – well, everyone except Pogacar, it seems! – I found I could keep going, like a diesel engine, but I couldn’t ‘jump’ at all,” Wood recalled.

“If I can get better at that, to find that freshness, that’ll be a bit special and another step forward.”