'You don't need to be 100% to win the Worlds, it can be a bit of a lottery' - Tom Pidcock gambles for success at World Championships

With all the focus on the history that could be made by either Belgium's Remco Evenepoel or Slovenia's Tadej Pogačar at this year's World Championships, little has been made of the history that GB's Tom Pidcock is on the precipice of.

No man has ever won the World title in cross-country mountain biking, cyclo-cross and on the road, and Pidcock has already completed two of the three. On a course that seems to suit the 25-year-old, who has won the Amstel Gold Race and been on the podium of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, ordinarily we would be playing up the chances of the man from Leeds.

However, after his triumphant defence of his Olympic MTB title in Paris, things have not gone exactly to plan, with Pidcock crashing at the Tour of Britain and missing two key warm-up races, the GPs de Montréal and Québec, as a result. It means he comes into the road race a bit under the radar, and hoping to be competitive, rather than stating his ambition to win a third elite rainbow jersey.

"It's a bit of a funny one," the Ineos Grenadiers rider said on Friday morning, at the opening of Pinarello's new store in Zürich. "I've missed the last two Road Worlds, and this year, I've not really had preparation that we'd imagined. After the Olympics we didn't really plan the rest of the year, and then I was coming good at the Tour of Britain I felt, but then I crashed, got concussion, so I haven't really had the time I needed. I think freshness is quite important at the end of the year, and you don't need to be 100% to win the Worlds, it can be a bit of a lottery sometimes.

"It's a weird one this year, coming into the Worlds, we'll just see how it goes. Get stuck in racing, and hopefully come out well to the Italian races which I've never done before.

"[The Road Worlds are] a goal of mine, I don't think this year is going to be the year, but every year is an experience and a chance to learn stuff."

GB have a strong team full of potential, with Stevie Williams, Adam and Simon Yates and Oscar Onley all lining up as part of the eight, all potential podium contenders in their own right. However, it is hard to look past Evenepoel and Pogačar, such is their stature as favourites.

"I think there are a few teams that are pretty strong, also US and Spain have strong teams, there's GB, and then there's Remco and Tadej of course," Pidcock said. "Tadej has stated how big a goal this is for him, and when he says that, you know he means business. All eyes will be on him. If you stake your claim like that, you have to be good to come out on top.

"I'm comparing myself with those guys, and I want to compete. I'm not there yet, but that's where I want to get to."

The Yorkshireman was yet to recon the course, which looks tough, with over 4,300m over its 274km, including seven laps of a tough Zürich city circuit. The goal for GB is simple though, have numbers at the front of the race and in key moves, and hope to come out with the best.

"We're going to go look at the course in a bit, it's difficult to tell," he explained. "There's a lot of climbing metres but the race is long, and the roads are quite fast here, but it might be easier to be in the bunch that it looks on paper.

"I think the tactic is to be aggressive and get ahead of the race, that's the team we've got. That's the best way to play it really.

"With circuit races, if you can learn the course well like a 'cross race or a MTB race, you know where to move up, where to save energy, that can help you a lot if you're good at that."

It might not be the dream way into the Worlds, but Pidcock will be entering the lottery, and hoping to pick out a few winning numbers.