Tom Pidcock resumed his preparation for the Tour de France by winning the cross country race at the Mountain Bike World Series in Czechia.
Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5) hasn’t raced since finishing second at the Eschborn Frankfurt on May 2nd, but returned to the dirt in search of form and a fifth win at the Nové Město course.
Riding for Pinarello Q36.5, Pidcock has a had a good season on the road, winning Milano-Torino, with taking stage victories at the Vuelta Andalucia and Tour of the Alps. He also took a nail biting second place behind Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) at Milan-San Remo in March. However, a knee injury sustained in a terrifying crash the Volta Ciclista a Cayalunya has disrupted his preparation for July’s Tour de France.
Pidcock is slated to return to the road at the Tour de Suisse in the middle of June. However, as a former world and reigning and double Olympic mountain bike champion, Pidcock used this weekend’s World Series races in Nové Město to both accrue qualification points and as part of his preparation for the summer’s challenges.
The weekend’s racing consists of both short course (XCC) and the longer cross-country races (XCO), Pidcock finishing second in the XCC and winning the XCO on Sunday. His win was definitive, hitting the front on the first of eight laps, though he lost that place, when he returned to the lead on the following lap he stayed there. Despite a tough battle with French champion Luca Martin, Pidcock held him off to win by 18 seconds.
Pidcock seemed to take it easy during the early laps of Saturday’s short course race, remaining n last place until the fifth lap when he moved up through the pack, taking a place at or near the front next time round.
On the closing lap Pidcock attacked hard on the back of the course, stretch the bunch before opening his sprint on the uphill, tarmac drag to the line, only to be pipped at the post by Mathis Azzaro (Origine Racing Division).
In the women’s events, Britain’s former world champion, Evie Richards (Trek Factory) recovered for a late crash to finish fifth in Saturday’s short track event, but suffered a a big off on one of the course’s technical descents and failed to finish the cross country race.
Next month Pidcock will tackle the five day Tour de Suisse, which consists of three lumpy stages, a flat individual time trial and conclude with a brutal mountain stage. Starting and finishing in Villars-sur-Ollon, the 151km stage will surely decide the general classification, and with Pogačar on the provisional start list the outcome could be a foregone conclusion.
