Tom's Profile

One of the most versatile and exciting young talents to emerge in British Cycling in recent years, Pidcock was selected for his first Olympic Games in 2021, named to ride the mountain bike event in Tokyo.

At the age of only 21, Pidcock has already packed more into his successful young career than many athletes achieve in a lifetime with significant medals on the road – in the time trialling, road racing and criterium racing disciplines – plus cyclo-cross, mountain biking and even track.

His potential led to a contract with leading UCI WorldTeam Ineos Grenadiers, where he is a team-mate of fellow Tokyo Olympians Teo Geoghegan Hart, Ethan Hayter, Geraint Thomas and Adam Yates.

In April 2021, he recorded his biggest road victory to date, winning Brabantse Pijl, a Flanders Classics road race, before finishing second in the Amstel Gold Race. A thrilling season was curtailed in June, when he suffered a fractured collar bone in a bad training accident although he made a swift recovery and returned to racing before the end of the month.

Biography

Born into a cycling family, Pidcock first rode at the age of three, was racing at seven and by the age of 10 had decided to pursue a career as a professional bike rider.

By the time he reached the youth age group, Pidcock was making regular podium appearances in mountain bike, cyclo-cross, road and track - a foretaste of the versatility and sheer weight of silverware the sport would see from him in the coming years.

In 2015-16, the Yorkshire rider made his mark on the international stage, with a top-five finish at the 2016 UCI Junior World Cyclo-cross Championships, while also winning a prestigious junior road race in Belgium, La Philippe Gilbert Juniors, in September.

For the 2016-17 season, Pidcock opted to concentrate on cyclo-cross, being rewarded in October when he won his first major title, claiming gold in the UEC Junior European Cyclo-cross Championships in Pontchateau, France, taking the lead on the third of eight laps before holding off France’s Nicolas Guillemin to win by 14 seconds.

It was the start of an autumn and winter of successes as he took his first podium - a third place - at a UCI Junior Cyclo-cross World Cup meeting in Zeven, Germany, before winning his first gold in that series at the legendary circuit in Namur, Belgium.

Pidcock celebrated the latter - won on a course known as the “Citadelcross” - by wheeling his bike across the finish line, a nod to previous winners Peter Sagan and Mathieu Van Der Poel. That win, and others like it, saw Pidcock offered a contract to ride for the Telenet-Fidea Lions cyclo-cross team, managed by former world champion Sven Nys, and meant that Pidcock entered the UCI World Junior Cyclo-cross Championships in January 2017 as a heavy favourite for the race in Bieles, Luxembourg.

He did not disappoint, after taking the lead on the second of five laps and powering away to become the first British world champion in the event for 25 years, a performance so dominant that he was christened “mini-Sagan” by the Belgian press.

After the cyclo-cross season, Pidcock enjoyed eye-catching victories on the road in 2017 - including the Paris-Roubaix Juniors, a round of the British Tour Series criterium in Durham and, arguably most impressive of all, victory in the British National Circuit Race Championships, an elite, senior event that he won despite being only 17.

For good measure, Pidcock rounded off summer 2017 by winning a junior national title on the track, in the scratch race, and won his second rainbow jersey of the year when he won the junior time trial at the UCI Road World Championships in Bergen, Norway.

Cyclo-cross successes continue

In October 2017, Pidcock started his contract with Nys’s Telenet-Fidea Lions team and had his first victory within the month, the under-23 race at the Niels Albert CX in Boom, Belgium, before he continued to make an impact on international cyclo-cross races.

Having won the first UCI Under-23 Cyclo-cross World Cup race of the season in Koksijde, Belgium, he was favourite for the under-23 race at the UEC European Championships in the Czech Republic soon after but came away with silver after being beaten in a sprint by Belgian Eli Iserbyt.

By December 2017, he had won all four of the UCI Under-23 Cyclo-cross World Cup races in which he had competed, thus winning the overall title although there was a rare sour note to end the season when he suffered a poor start to the 2018 UCI Cyclo-Cross Under-23 World Championships and could only come in 15th.

For 2018-19, Pidcock rode cyclo-cross for a new British team that was to be built around him - TP Racing - while preparing to spend the summer road season racing for Team Wiggins, the eponymous team created by the multiple Great Britain Olympic champion.

The cyclo-cross season was again one of numerous successes for Pidcock - including a second UCI Under-23 Cyclo-cross World Cup overall title, after he won four of the seven races, the Under-23 Superprestige series, the UEC European Cyclo-cross Championships in the Netherlands, the senior British National Championship and, another rainbow jersey at the UCI Cyclo-Cross Under-23 World Championships in Bogense, Denmark, where he beat his old rival Iserbyt by 15 seconds.

In the colours of Wiggins Le Col, Pidcock moved to the road for the 2019 season and won the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs, the under-23 version of the junior race he had won previously, beating Swiss rider Johan Jacobs after the pair attacked from a nine-man breakaway group with 20km remaining.

Pidcock even moved on successfully to yet another disciple, winning the under-23 title at the British National Mountain Bike Championships before the young Yorkshireman enjoyed home “field” advantage at the 2019 UCI Road World Championships where he finished fourth in the under-23 road race but was elevated to the bronze medal place after Nils Eekhoff was disqualified for drafting a team car.

The next cyclo-cross season, 2019-20, saw his TP Racing team re-named Trinity Racing as he stepped up to the senior level although there was no drop off in his phenomenal success, despite the higher level of racing.

There were four top-ten finishes in the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup and the UEC European Cyclo-cross Championships and a successful defence of his British national title before he headed to Dubendorf, Switzerland, for the 2020 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in February where he finished second to Dutch rider Mathieu van der Poel.

From TP Racing to Ineos Grenadiers

Pidcock was scheduled to ride for TP Racing on the road in 2020, although the summer schedule was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving him to return to racing in August by gaining his first experiences of international mountain bike events - the discipline in which he would eventually earn selection for Tokyo.

His talent at that event was immediately apparent, with Pidcock wining the under-23 race at the French Cup race at Alpe d’Huez and then winning three of the five stages of the Transmaurienne Vanoise, finishing fourth overall and winning the under-23 category.

As the 2020 road season finally got underway in late August, he finished fourth in the under-23 time trial at the European Road Championships in Plouay, France and enjoyed a breakout performance at the Giro Ciclistico d’Italia - the amateur version of the famous Italian stage race, knows as the “Baby Giro.”

Riding for Trinity Racing, Pidcock won three stages and the overall pink leader’s jersey, as well as the mountains classification, form which led to Great Britain appealing for him to be allowed to ride for the senior men’s team at the delayed UCI Road World Championships in Imola, Italy.

Permission was granted, as younger age group racing had been cancelled, leaving Pidcock to complete the longest race of his career as team leader, eventually finishing the 258km route in 42nd place.

The Covid-ravaged 2020 season concluded with Pidcock back on a mountain bike and recording wins in two rounds of the UCI Under-23 Mountain Bike Cross-country World Cup to win the overall title, although his most spectacular success was to come in the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Leogang, Austria in October.

Having won the senior electric mountain bike cross-country race from Frances Jerome Gilloux, by 35 seconds, he repeated the victory, and won a second rainbow jersey of the week, in the under-23 cross-country race, beating Christopher Blevins of the USA by a staggering one minute 52 seconds.

By that stage, Pidcock had already signed to ride for leading British road team Ineos Grenadiers in 2021, although he had time to record yet another impressive cyclo-cross title in November 2020, when he won the Superprestige Gavere in Belgium. But by February, he was staring his road career with Ineos Grenadiers at the Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var road race in France.

Despite his still young years, Pidcock did not hold back in a busy Classics season, recording some stunning results for such an inexperienced road rider.

Having finished third in Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne and fifth at Strade Bianche in Italy, a race won by his old cycle-cross rival van der Poel, he recorded his best road victory to date when he won De Brabantse Pijl in a close-run finish with Wout van Aert. Four days later, Pidcock almost recorded another incredible win, just losing out to van Aert this time, in a photo finish at the Amstel Gold Race in the Netherlands.

There was also time for Pidcock to record Ineos Grenadiers’ first ever mountain bike victory when he won the Swiss Bike Cup in Leukerbad by over three minutes.

In a busy 2021, Pidcock also announced that he was to launch his own “Gran Fondo” mass participation race on his home roads in Yorkshire. The Tom Pidcock Gran Fondo was due to take place on August 1, a few days after he was scheduled to ride the Olympic mountain bike race.

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