Harrison Wood can’t have too many complaints about his 2024 race schedule: in his second year as a pro with WorldTour team Cofidis, the 24-year-old has ridden and completed the Giro d’Italia, finished another four top-tier stage races, and lined up in the two Italian Monuments: Milan-Sanremo and Il Lombardia. “Since the end of February, I’ve done very few non-WorldTour races, and I’ve always been up against the very best,” the Briton tells Rouleur of a proper schooling in cycling's highest division.
In all, Wood has ridden 75 race days and always had one clear role: that of a domestique. As his constant selection in the biggest races highlights, Cofidis have been pleased with his work and progression as a trusted helper, but his obedience to the job has curiously worked against him. “At the start of the year they were discussing prolonging my contract and me staying with the team for a few years more, but around the time of Paris-Nice they told me to wait a bit,” he says. “And since then they’ve been umming and ahhing.”
The reason behind Cofidis’s indecisiveness and leaving Wood waiting is that the French team are battling to save their WorldTour licence, with the current three-year points cycle coming to a close at the end of the 2025 season. As things stand, Cofidis would be the 18th-ranked team – enough to secure WorldTour status, but things remain too close for comfort. Because Wood has been carrying bottles, sticking his face in the wind and delivering his team leaders, he’s only accrued 57 points over the past two seasons (the equivalent of finishing fifth or sixth in a single Grand Tour stage), and Cofidis now need big point earners to guarantee survival.
“It’s annoying and I’m out in the lurch because at the start of the season we were looking good and they were talking about keeping me, but the points situation is flying around and it means the team has entered into a transfer window where they need to sign riders who score points,” Wood continues. “I can understand it as if they don’t score points they won’t be WorldTour, but it’s not my problem if you tell me not to score WorldTour points and I don’t. We get to August and you say I’ve not scored points, it’s a bit weird.
Wood sat with Ineos Grenadiers rider Geraint Thomas during the 2024 Giro d'Italia (Image by SWpix.com)
“I’m not complaining about riding these big races, but it’s very hard to win a race or score points when you’re always up against [Tadej] Pogačar or [Jonas] Vingegaard. I’ve done well in these races, improved a lot, but I’m not sure I’ve improved enough for Cofidis which is a shame. If I had a chance to go for my own results in smaller races, I’m certain that I have the ability and level to have done that.”
Indeed, Wood was given a bit of freedom at Gran Piemonte on October 10 and finished 20th in the second group. He had hoped it would reassure Cofidis of his qualities, but with the season now having reached its conclusion, he still hasn’t been given a definitive answer on his future at Cofidis. Instead, the team’s manager Cédric Vasseur has just repeated to him that they have two spots still to fill. “It’s looking like there’s not going to be a place for me,” Wood rues. “If I knew in April, I’d have raced differently, put myself first, try to get results for myself. So it’s a little bit frustrating that I’m getting to the end of the year having done a good job but am probably going to be told I can’t stay.
“There’s no point beating around the bush: we’re playing with our own careers in terms of the results we get and I’ve only been doing the job that was asked of me. At the same time, the work you do within a smaller team isn’t as beneficial or as well seen as the work done by domestiques within Visma or UAE. These teams have the top leaders who win races, so if you ride on the front and do a job for them, people see it. With the smaller teams, less people see what you’re doing.”
The relegation system has faced regular criticism during the past five years on a number of issues, and Wood believes that if there was no promotion and demotion ranking in place, his own fortunes would be different. “If we got rid of the system, there’d be a lot of similar-age riders like me who’d get another year or two to keep developing and improving, but because the teams are so stressed and worried about the situation, instead of signing or backing a younger rider, they sign a 35- or 36-year-old at the end of their career who can bail them out with some points,” he says.
Should, as he expects, Wood not have his contract renewed by Cofidis, remaining in the WorldTour is looking unlikely – despite his track record of competing in the biggest races. “I’m in contact with one WorldTour and a ProTour team, but we’ll see,” he adds. “Because I’ve not got many UCI points, and only had a few races to do my own thing, other teams look at me and think, ‘it’d be good if you could show us some UCI points’. But I’ve not had the chance to do that. It’s hard because I know I’ve got the level to stay in the WorldTour.”
*Cover image by Getty Images
