Carter Woods is following in the well-worn tire ruts of a Comox Valley tradition.
The ascendant rider from Cumberland won in the UCI mountain bike World Cup for the second week in a row in the men鈥檚 U-23 class. Woods was victorious again Saturday in Nov茅 M臎sto na Morav臎, Czech Republic, to follow up his gold medal from last week in the first race of the World Cup season.
鈥淟ast weekend, I played a pretty conservative game because I didn鈥檛 really know any of the other riders,鈥� said Woods, in a statement.
鈥淚 just wanted to gauge where everyone was at. But coming into this race, the goal was to go on the second or third lap.鈥�
Hailing from the Island, Woods was well acquainted with the rainy conditions.
鈥淭he course was super muddy, which played to my advantage,鈥� said the 18-year-old pro with Norco Factory.
Woods is among four Island riders selected among the 47 athletes to the Cycling Canada NextGen development team for the Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. Erin Attwell and Sarah Van Dam, both of Victoria, are named to the women鈥檚 track endurance program, and Emilly Johnston of Comox and Woods to the mountain biking program.
While Mount Washington has made recent impacts in the Winter Olympics, headlined by Pyeongchang 2018 gold-medallist ski half-pipe performer Cassie Sharpe of Comox, the Island hill has an even longer history of mountain biking success. Woods is continuing a Comox Valley tradition blazed by the likes of Geoff Kabush, the UVic mechanical engineering graduate from Courtenay who had two top-10 finishes among his three Olympic appearances at Sydney 2000, Beijing 2008 and London 2012, and Kiara Bisaro of Comox, 2004 Athens Olympian and bronze medallist at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
The senior World Cup races are today. In the women鈥檚 race are UVic-graduate and two-time world champion and 2016 Rio Olympics bronze-medallist Catharine Pendrel, who learned the riding craft on the Hartland trails, and 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist Haley Smith, centralized with the national mountain biking team on Bear Mountain. Pendrel, who gave birth to daughter Dara in January, and Smith are on track to represent Canada in the Tokyo Olympics this summer.