Pidcock’s rise continues
Double world champion already feeling weight of expectation
British junior sensation Tom Pidcock showed what a class act he is once again in Bergen, returning home with Britain’s best result of the World Championships — gold in the junior men’s time trial.
Already world champion in cyclo-cross, Pidcock had hoped to become a triple world-beater in the road race, but ultimately fell short of the mark.
“It wasn’t great, to be honest. My legs just weren’t there today,” lamented the 18-year-old Yorkshireman after the race.
“I was definitely a marked man. And a marked man with not the best legs in the world isn’t really going to work very well so, yeah, the last climb I didn’t have it.”
However, his performance in the time trial only served to cement the view that Pidcock, whose signature is being courted by multiple teams including Team Wiggins, is destined for great things in the sport.
However, Pidcock gave a surprisingly muted response when asked about his time trial gold and new status as a double world champion following the road race: “Yeah it’s been pretty good. I mean... winning races has become expected of me so when I don’t win a race I don’t live up to expectations, but when I do it’s just expectation isn’t it? So, it’s alright.
“I’m not too down on myself, I’m just tired,” he added, perhaps not unfairly, considering the 133 lumpy kilometres he’d just raced.
But Team GB performance manager Rod Ellingworth was quick to praise his charge and specifically his attitude to the week’s races in Bergen, Norway. “Tom’s win… you know he’s good, there’s an expectation, but listening to [coach] Stuart Blunt, he said the moment he left the start grid he was just wallop, straight into it. He was just on top of the game and going well,” Ellingworth said.
He said he saw a similar application from Pidcock in the road race: “We were really happy with the result in a way because it’s not all about the result, it’s about the way they apply themselves. He’s just got to keep concentrating on the bits he can do well in. At the minute he’s doing really well, he’s showing how versatile he is.”
If the junior Paris-roubaix winner can continue to ride in that vein it’s likely he can achieve his potential, though no one can be certain how good that might be.
Ellingworth said: “You can only be as good as you can be. You don’t know what’s going to happen in five years’ time.
More immediately for Pidcock, the cyclo-cross season beckons before next year’s road races but, Pidcock said, not before some time off. “I just need a rest,” he explained.