Ollie Wood hoping for a Tour of Britain repeat as he plots Olympic team pursuit return

For the 30-year-old from Wakefield won the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix on Michaelgate just three months ago, part of a fine body of work from the experienced domestic road cyclist during a summer in which he also won the Sheffield Grand Prix.

Any rider from Netcompany Ineos or UAE Team Emirates or Soudal Quickstep for that matter who wants to pick Wood’s brains might find the phone put down on them, though.

Because the Yorkshireman has designs on doing the Lincoln double to kickstart his Tour of Britain challenge, one that this year straddles the east coast and then two stages in Yorkshire next Friday and Saturday before a finish in the Scottish Borders.

Although, by his own admission, winning in the colours of Rapha in the national series in May in Lincoln is one thing, doing it again in the Great Britain skinsuit he will don next week is another matter entirely.

“It'll be a slightly different atmosphere in Lincoln and it's going to feel strange to have raced there many times,” Wood tells The Yorkshire Post.

“It's going to be really hard, a massively different set-up, seeing what the crowds will be like and going up there with some of the best in the world, rather than the best in the country, will be a bit different, but I'm looking forward to it, especially being the first stage.

“Naturally I wouldn't say no to a stage win. You never know what happens but there's usually about half a dozen World Tour teams in the Tour of Britain and it’s a real step up in class.”

Wood is the elder statesman of the six-man GB team and he knows people like the Swift cousins, Ben and Connor, who are slated to race for Netcompany Ineos, might give him a bit of elbow room on the roads.

But not many others of a World Tour persuasion will be as forgiving.

“You sort of don't necessarily get the respect when you’re riding for a national team,” says Wood. “When there's a bit of hustle or bustle, you don't get the respect.

“They look at the jersey and think bugger him, so perhaps if you were in a different jersey, a World Tour jersey, they might let you on the wheel or something. It's definitely a battle.

“I remember racing the Tour as a 19-year-old and just getting my head kicked in.”

More known for his prowess on the track – he won a 12th European Championship medal with the team pursuit squad in Turkey back in February – Wood is enjoying a stellar year on the road.

He puts it down to a change of coach, Cameron Meyer, and a change of philosophy as he enters his 30s.

“I had four years with my previous coach and I'm getting towards the end of my career I just needed a change,” he says.

“It's like your body, especially when you're older, needs new stimuli. So just approaching training slightly differently has helped.

“This year on the road has been pretty good for me.

“I think that's partly down to my new coach, we've stepped back a bit from some of the track events throughout the summer, like the World Cup and the Commonwealth Games, just in preparation for hoping for a better lead-up and lead-through to get into the World Track Championships in October in China.”

Taking opportunities like representing Great Britain on the road next week are all part of the grander plan of staying competitive on the track.

Wood has been on the team pursuit scene for a decade now, straddling generations from the end of the Ed Clancy years which marred Wood’s first experience of an Olympics in Tokyo in 2021 as Great Britain struggled, to working with younger guns to try and re-establish Britain’s dominance in the velodrome.

This they did to an extent in Paris, with Wood part of the four-man team that won a silver medal, still the highlight of Wood’s career. “It was the ambition from the age of 15, 16,” he says two years on from his Olympic high.

Retaining his place in that team pursuit squad is only getting harder as he looks to maintain a foothold in the team on the road to the Los Angeles Olympics.

“Very hard at the minute,” he says of the challenge, which continues at the world championships in China in October.

“I think the coach could probably pick one of, I don't know, 10 guys for a four-man team and they could probably go within a second of each other, so it's going to be hard to make the team. And then even harder to win a gold.”

Back in the Clancy days, the team pursuit squad were famous for peaking in Olympic year and stepping off the throttle in the intervening championships.

Wood says such an approach is long gone.

“We're having to gun for it every time now, maybe the philosophy's slightly changed and everyone's hungry,” says Wood. “You don't get as many opportunities as back in those days before my time when there was only, say, five riders and they might have been scrambling around for riders at certain points.

“But the coach for this world champs could probably pick eight riders that could probably all do the same thing.

“But each of us is gunning for it all year round, every year.”

That’s why Wood has had to adapt and evolve.

“Sometimes when you get older you might start to stagnate,” he offers.

“This might be my last Olympic cycle, so you may as well change something towards the end and see if it works.”

It has so far this year on the track and on the road with Wood hoping that continues next week as the Tour of Britain weaves across some familiar terrain.

“No matter where it is in Yorkshire, you always get a good turnout,” beams West Yorkshireman Wood, proudly.

“There's a good hunger for cycling across the region and we’re going to get two cracking stages.”