Tom Pidcock can take another big step towards his ambition of one day winning the Tour de France as he embarks on cycling‘s biggest race for the second time.
Pidcock lit up the Tour on debut last summer with his stunning solo victory from a breakaway on Alpe d’Huez, and the 23-year-old will be back on the start line for Saturday’s opening stage in Bilbao with different goals.
Winning from a breakaway is one thing but Pidcock wants victory from within the bunch to show he can compete with the best, while also testing himself in the general classification.
Rod Ellingworth, deputy team principal of the Ineos Grenadiers, sees his young star as a potential future Grand Tour winner, but one needing experience.
“I think he’s still got some work to do to be a contender in the general classification,” Ellingworth said. “I think for me this is playing the long game, it’s a stepping stone towards his dreams and ambitions, and he’s certainly got ambitions at the Tour.”
Winning the Tour has been a young man’s game in recent years. Tadej Pogacar became a double champion aged just 22 in 2021, Egan Bernal was 22 when he took yellow in 2019, and Jonas Vingegaard 25 when he won last year.
But Pidcock is on a different journey as the Olympic mountain bike champion and former cyclo-cross world champion balances ambitions across three disciplines.
“Tom is someone who when he sets his mind to somewhere, he’ll go for it full-bore,” Ellingworth said. “At the moment we know Tom has ambitions that are not just at the Tour and we’re happy to go on that journey with him.
“He’s ticking the boxes as he goes along of things he wants to achieve and the Tour will be one. Whether he makes it, you never know, but he’s certainly going to give it a good crack.”
Pidcock headlines the Grenadiers’ eight-man squad alongside Bernal, who returns to the Tour for the first time since 2020, fighting his way back from the catalogue of broken bones suffered in a career-threatening crash at the start of last year.
The Colombian finished 12th at the Criterium du Dauphine earlier this month, but his first Grand Tour since he won the Giro d’Italia in 2021 will be a major test.
“Egan is very ambitious but very realistic in what he can achieve,” Ellingworth said. “He wants to keep pushing himself. Egan is a proven winner before that accident and a fantastic role model and road captain.
“We’re really open and very happy to give him this opportunity to see what he can do. He’s certainly going to try on GC.”
The challenge for Ineos and a host of others is to figure out a way of competing with Pogacar and Vingegaard, by far and away the two favourites once again.
Ineos, formerly Team Sky, were perennial winners of the Tour over the last decade but have not tasted victory since Bernal’s in 2019.
With Pidcock too raw and Bernal rediscovering himself, it is hard to see that changing this summer.
“We’ve got to see where Tom progresses, and he’s certainly on the right track, and then see how Egan steps back,” Ellingworth said. “It’s going to take a little bit of time unfortunately, that’s just where we are as a team.
“Egan was our card to play for the Tour de France for the next two to three years. Life is what it is and you just have to put up with it, and we’ll do our best to get him back to where he was.
“Our ambition is we want to win the Tour again. Anybody can be beaten. Grand Tours are a hell of a journey from start to finish and you can never write yourself out.”
PA
