The Route To Tokyo By Track And Road

Despite an impressive fourth place in the under-23 Worlds road race, Oliver Wood is targeting Tokyo 2020 before a full-time road career awaits

- Paul Knott

Family ties are common within cycling. Eddy and Axel Merckx, Stephen and Nicolas Roche, Erik and Rick Zabel are just a few examples of fathers who have inspired their sons.

Oliver Wood’s father Alastair may not ring too many bells to the average cycling fan, but it is clear his offspring may well have adopted some of the race craft and physical traits that led to him winning two National Madison Championships in the late 1980s. Even though he has since surpassed his father’s achievements on the track, Oliver ‘Ollie’ Wood is keen to add to his palmarès. “I’ll find my own path, but he loves getting involved with any information I have to tell him,” he says. “I haven’t lived at home for a fair few years so it’s usually a case of him saying that I should ring him more.”

That path looked as though it might be solely focused on the track judging by the early part of his career. After graduating from the Olympic Development Programme onto the British Cycling Academy, Wood earned a spot on the British team pursuit squad for the final round of the Track World Cup in 2014 at the tender age of 18. Multiple National Track Championship victories followed on the pine in 2014 and 2015, before he finally achieved World Cup podium success in 2016 in the Madison and team pursuit.