No other pro cyclists have done that.

They featured him quite a bit on the NBCSN feed of the tour last year. Was a national-level middle-distance runner in his youth apparently. Stress fractures brought him to cycling.

https://cyclingtips.com/...-the-tour-de-france/

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

yep, I believe he went to Michigan state on a full track scholarship, so he was pretty good as a high schooler!

I actually had the privilege of riding and racing with him when he switched to cycling. Even cooler is he lives just down the road from me, but doesn't come home very often! He is a super nice down to earth guy.

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He went to University of Michigan, most definitely not to be confused with Michigan State University, you would be crucified if you said that in the state of Michigan :)

Ha ha, I’m Canadian - I have no idea!

Thanks for correction though!

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Don't feel bad.
Last week the white house said the new supreme court judge was a Rhodes scholar. She graduated from Rhodes college.

Phew, I knew that one.

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Fair, thought wouldn't it be worse if he was accused of going to Ohio State?

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80/20 Endurance Ambassador

If I had to bet, I would have only considered Indurain to have gone close to this, given he was apparently an outstanding junior 400m runner. You'd think with some work he might have gone close.

Can he swim?

yes, and he has said he would do Ironman
https://triathlonmagazine.ca/...post-cycling-career/

Thats an interesting stat from the article


About 1400 runners went sub 4
About 2800 bikers started a tour de france

And from the comments... 4 minute mile is above 24km per hour

How close to sub 4 would a itu guy be? Would it be possible for someone to train for it during lockdown like lionel with the hour?

Woods was a legit stud runner. I have a few years on him, so I was well off the track by the time he started hitting those kinds of times, but still doing a lot of coaching. He was awesome to watch. He hit his outdoor mile PB here in Windsor.

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Matt Gervais

That stat of 2800 bikers having participated in TdF must be wrong. There are 180 riders every year in a TdF. There have been 120 years of TdF. This implies an average of only 23 first time riders every year out of a field of 180? No way. Way too low.

sub 4 mile is extraordinary, so highly unlikely that an elite fast twitch (ITU) type triathlete can simply train for it and do it. I would imagine a lot of ITU guys with some focused track work could get down to sub 4:08 (3:50 1500), but sub 4 is really, really rare air.

Literally in all of time there have been only 11 high schoolers who have done it.

7:52 3000m indoors. Man, that is so fast. Looking at NCAA Div 1 championship winning times since 1965, that time would crown him NCAA champ every year except for 4 (Adam Goucher 1999, Lopez Lomong 2007, Lawi Lalang 2012/13)

Ya, that stood out as pretty well the most impressive stat up there. I remember when he did it. I think it ranked in the top 5-10 all-time Canadian indoors, but it was in South Bend, so the track was oversized. Maybe 330m or something.
He still holds the Canadian Outdoor U20 record in the 3000m with that 7:58.

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Matt Gervais

According to this all time athletics list only 5191 in the history of humanity from the start of time have gone sub 4:

http://www.alltime-athletics.com/m_mileok.htm


Likely a bunch of 1500m performances would double this, but in essence, MOST of the ITU guys are too heavy to run sub 4. Even Woods is kind of heavy for a runner, which is why he is able to race protour. If he weighed 125 lbs there would be no way he could ride in the protour. But being sub 130 lbs puts you in the correct starting weight to go sub 4. Bannister was huge at 70 kilos...he would be perfect size to be a long course tri guy but with his watts per kilo he would be a fabulous GC contender with likley a good ability to TT.

You need to run a unique sort on that list. For instance, Steve Scott is on there 135 times.

The TdF has not always been the same race since it's inception. It also hasn't been held 120 times. It's been held 107 times in 117 years.
I don't know if their participation figure is correct, I assume it's varied a lot from the current 180ish figure over the years, but if we assumed that the actual participation figure started out much lower and perhaps the average has been 120 riders, that would mean 2800 riders would only need to average 4.6 editions each. That seems a bit high to me alright but many modern riders take part repeatedly for a decade and I migth still be guessing high on average riders per edition; so, it doesn't seem necessarily out of the question to me.

I don't think any triathlete would be classed as "fast twitch". A "sprint" triathlon is still an endurance event, much more closely related to IM distance triathlon than any true fast twitch event like track sprinting, high jump or weight lifting.

A sub 4 miler is at worst a 1:52 800 guy and a 0:47 400 guy. To pull that off you have to be pretty "fast twitch" on the endurance scale. I agree, even crazy fast ITU guys could not muster that turn of speed.

You are likely correct. Probably 100 guys on that list have done sub 4 20-50 times each so that would cut the number in half right there.

I think you need to take the 1500m list and mile list and run those sorts to see how many humans are sub 3 capable and cut the 1500m list off at 3:45 (15 second per 100m gets you 4 min mile)

3:43.7 1500 meter = 4:00 1609 meters

I would imagine relatively few have gone under 3:43 1500 but not done a sub-4. Sub 4 is one of those feathers in a cap accomplishments that if you are capable of it you do it.

But we are digressing. Woods is a rare breed, even amongst a peloton full of rare breeds.

Much like the track (velodrome) guys that turn themselves inside out for that hour, the 1500m all time list is about the same. There is nothing left on the table after those guys hit their 1500m PB's.
The cutoff for a sub 4 mile, is more like mid 3:43 believe it or not. Don't think I've ever been quite that far into the hurt box, but that last 100m to hit the mile is surprisingly more than (mile time = 1500m time + (1500/15)).
Not to mention the last 9m meters that needs to be covered. (mile = 1609m)
3:45 1500m = 4:02 mile

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Matt Gervais