Crash won’t stop Pidcock from racing for world title on home turf
WHEN Tom Pidcock awoke in a French hospital last month, bloodied and bruised from a nasty crash and ‘high on painkillers’, he was sure of at least one thing: he would still race at the UCI Road World Championships on home turf in Yorkshire.
The 20-year-old Leeds rider - one of the most exciting prospects in British cycling - had come from winning Tour Alsace and was showing outstanding form at the Tour de l’Avenir, a key race for under-23 riders, well positioned to challenge for victory on stage six before suffering a dramatic crash.
“I woke up in hospital, I saw the clock and it was 5pm,” said Pidcock, who will line up for Great Britain in today’s under-23 men’s road race. “I didn’t really know what was going on. I was high on drugs and painkillers.
“But I could move and everything so though I knew I wasn’t in the race anymore, I knew I could still get to the World Champs.”
The scars are still visible on his face, a front tooth missing, and Pidcock says he has been getting stiffness in his knee during the two-and-a-half weeks he has been back on his bike since the crash.
But there was never any question he wanted to race here.
“A World Champs at home is probably only going to happen once in my lifetime, for sure in Yorkshire,” said Pidcock, already a two-time cyclo-cross world champion and junior time trial world champion in 2017.
“Maybe it will happen somewhere else in England, but certainly this is the biggest motivation you can have.”