Death of coach Enzo Calzaghe
TOP Leeds cycling prospect Tom Pidcock has made his intentions clear that he wants to join Team Sky.
The 19-year-old has attracted attention from across the sport after winning junior world titles in cyclo-cross and time-trial disciplines.
American team Trek Segafredo have offered him a potential pathway to the WorldTour, with the teenager having spent the 2017-18 season racing at Under-23 level for Telenet Fidea – the Belgian cyclo-cross team which works in partnership with Trek Segafredo.
Despite this, Pidcock stated that riding for a British team was most important to him, and with Sky having won five of the last six Tours de France, they, for him, represent the perfect fit.
“They’re the best team aren’t they?,” said the Team Wiggins rider, who contested the Tour de Yorkshire this year for the Great Britain Cycling Development team. “There are other good teams out there but Sky are British, it’s part of the same system that I’ve come through – the British Cycling Academy and Team Wiggins.”
Roundhay-based Pidcock continued: “I’d like to move up in 2020. Next year, I’ll be focusing on the road world championships in Yorkshire, then I’ll do another cross season but after that I’ll be looking to step up.”
After riding the Tour of Britain earlier this month, Pidcock will return to competing in cyclocross in Belgium with his new team in the middle of October, having left Telenet-Fidea.
“I wanted to change things and this was the best way to do it,” said Pidcock, who two winters ago won the national, European and world junior cyclo-cross titles.
Pidcock’s ambition for the season is to retain his Under-23 World Cup title as well as racing the Belgian Superprestige series.
Enzo Calzaghe, who steered son Joe to an unbeaten 46-fight career crowned with world titles at two different weights, has died at the age of 69.
Calzaghe, who had no prior experience in the sport, masterminded his son’s rise to the top and also experienced world-title success with Welsh fighters Gavin Rees and Enzo Maccarinelli.
Born in Sardinia in 1949, Calzaghe set up a training camp in a shed in Newbridge, south Wales, from which the family’s extraordinary boxing odyssey began.
Calzaghe’s success was recognised when he won the prestigious ‘Ring’ Magazine trainer of the year award in 2007, and three years later he received the MBE.
Calzaghe was in his son’s corner throughout his 10-year reign as world middleweight champion, and when he successfully moved up in weight to dethrone light-heavyweight king Bernard Hopkins in Las Vegas in 2008.