Pidcock wins thanks to a little help from his friends

TOM Pidcock hailed a ‘special win’ in his garlanded career but even the superstar from Leeds needed a little help from his Yorkshire friends to do it.

The 24-year-old Olympic champion won the prestigious Amstel Gold Race in the Netherlands on Sunday in a sprint finish, underlining his prowess as one of the emerging stars of road cycling.

He already has an Olympic gold medal in mountain biking, and world titles in that discipline and in cyclo-cross, but in terms of on the road, this is a victory he can rank alongside a Tour de France stage on Alpe-d’Huez in 2022 and another Spring Classic, the Strade Bianchi, last summer.

As ever with Pidcock, it was all down to guts at the end, the instinct to know when to seize the moment.

But in a race spanning 253.6km, there were times when he needed support from his team.

And within Ineos Grenadiers’ seven-man team were two men from Doncaster taking their turn on the front. First up it was Connor Swift, the former British road race champion, putting in a big shift for his team, and this was followed by Ben Turner taking his chance to lead his them up the undulating hills of the south of the Netherlands.

“Today the team were fully behind me and to be able to repay them is really special,” said Pidcock, who had hurt his hand during the even more gruelling Paris-Roubaix cobbled Classic a week earlier, in which he still finished 11th.

“My hand after Roubaix meant this week I was struggling to sprint. So I was not so confident, but that was just how it was going to end up.

“I knew that this was going to be the front group, and whether more guys came across I don’t know. But I knew that this was already the final [group] here. I think everyone was looking at each other at this point in the race.

“I put in one attack and people followed, then another one and Tiesj (Benoot) and someone else was with us. We were the last guys to go across to the front. It’s not always about legs at this point.” For a natural-born winner like Pidcock, second place is as good as nowhere and – the cyclo-cross and mountain bike winter-season aside – it had been 13 months since he had tasted victory on the road. “It feels really good,” said Pidcock, pictured. “This year has been so tough, at the start of the year making big sacrifices being away from home so much.

“So now to finally put it together and get my hands in the air it means a lot.

“This is a race I’ve always loved racing – it’s pretty special.

“Now the pressure is off we can just go and race and do our best – dare I say enjoy [upcoming Classics Fleche and Liege]!”

Pidcock was also indebted to a powerful turn on the front by Ineos’s former world champion Michal Kwiatkowski.

The Polish rider said: “I think Tom was always in the right place at the right time which was our main objective – to keep our leader out of trouble.

“That’s why he could finish like this. He had really good legs I suppose and it’s finally the victory which he deserved already.”