Road
- Strade Bianche victory 2023
- Tour de France stage victory, Alpe d'Huez 2022
- Tour of Britain, second overall 2022
- Brabantse Pijl victory 2021
- Giro d'Italia U23 "Baby Giro" overall victory 2020
Cyclocross - UCI World Championships victory 2022
Mountain bike - Cross-country gold medal, Tokyo Olympic Games 2022
- Cross-country victory, UEC European Championships 2022
Early life
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Tom Pidcock was born in Leeds, Yorkshire on 30.07.1999. His Father, Giles, is a former cyclist and still heavily involved in the sport today. Tom's younger brother Joe is also a professional, and rides for the TRINITY Racing team run by Andrew McQuaid.
Right from the beginning, Pidcock was hooked on road and track and soon made the Great Britain Junior Academy. When not riding as part of the GB academy, he started out with a local team, Paul Milnes/Oldfield ERT.
Pidcock was on a bike from the age of three, riding on the paths surrounding Herne Hill velodrome in London and as much as he could while attending school. His first race came at the age of seven at the Castle Combe circuit in Wiltshire.
His first success on two wheels came with a victory in the British National Youth Road Series in Scarborough, near his Leeds home, aged 14.
Career to date
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Pidcock's professional road career started with Team Wiggins where he raced for two years before joining Trinity Racing to focus on cyclo-cross and under 23 races. But it was in 2021 where the British rider made the expected move to WorldTour team, Ineos Grenadiers where he signed a three-year contract.
In 2018 Pidcock made his first starts at both the Tour de Yorkshire and Tour of Britain, performing better at the latter with a very solid 17th place overall.
2019 was one of Pidcock's most impressive years, winning races like the U23 Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Alsace as well as some brilliant rides including getting third in the U23 World Championships in Yorkshire, top results at the Tour de l'Avenir, with a few interesting results in the U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège where he got 26th and then fifth at the Rutland-Melton Cicle Classic.
2020 was of course a tricky one, as it was for all riders, but he still put on some incredible displays at just four races, making his elite debuts in both the World and European Championships where he took 42nd and 55th respectively, European Championships where he took 42nd and 55th respectively. He also took fourth in the U23 European Championships time trial.
In 2021, Pidcock made his highly anticipated debut for Ineos Grenadiers at the Tour des Alpes-Martimes et du Var, only managing 86th, 81st and 37th over the three stages, finishing 52nd overall. His second race saw him go on the attack but not feature in the finish of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad as he finished 55th.
But it was the day after at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne where he first showed that he was full of promise, taking third in a small bunch sprint behind former world champion, Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo).
Later that Spring, Pidcock took his first steps to greatness on the road with his first major Classics victory at Brabantse Pijl. A few days later, he would be forced to settle for second place behind Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) in the Amstel Gold race after a dubious photo finish ruled he had finished behind the Belgian.
Before those two big results in Belgium and the Netherlands, Pidcock recorded a fifth placed finish at Strade Bianche, a race he would go on to win in the years to come.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Just a few months later, things would suddenly go up a notch with a ground breaking result at the rearranged Tokyo Olympic Games. In the cross-country mountain bike event, Pidcock blew his rivals out of the water to land a first-ever gold medal for Great Britain in the event. The Yorkshireman also landed first place in mountain bike world cup rounds as well as in various cyclocross events.
When 2022 arrived, Pidcock would rapidly begin the new year with a bang, winning the UCI Cyclocross World Championships in Fayetteville, USA giving him the cross’ rainbow bands for the rest of the following year.
His road campaign would begin with third place at Dwars door Vlaanderen- a key warm up race for the Tour of Flanders- before fifth on his return to Brabantse Pijl. Later that summer, he would go on to get his biggest result on the road yet, a stage win at the Tour de France on the Alpe d’Huez, one of the French Grand Tour’s most iconic climbs.
In August, Pidcock's success would continue to arrive by the bucket load. At the mountain bike European Championships in Munich, Pidcock dominated from the moment the flag was dropped, going on to win the gold medal. The Yorkshireman put three-laps into his rivals in the process.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The final few months of the 2022 road season saw Pidcock finish second at the Tour of Britain. He also was leading the points classification before the race was cancelled due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Many felt that if the race had continued, Pidcock would have comfortably wrapped up the overall title due to the form he had displayed in the races early stages.
During the off season, Pidcock competed in a handful of cyclocross races across Europe, including the Dublin round of the UCI cyclocross world cup.
There was much discussion about whether he would look to defend his cyclocross world title in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands, although the Yorkshireman and his coaches refused to commit themselves either way.
In the meantime, the Ineos Grenadiers man won the Boom round of the Superprestige competition in Belgium, he also took the runner up spot in Diegem behind Wout van Aert in the same competition. As well as those two results, Pidcock finished on the podium at three rounds of the world cup.
Eventually, he would sit out the cross' worlds, with the aim of starting his 2023 Spring Classics campaign on the road in the best shape possible.
When 2023 arrived, that decision would prove to be an important one. In early February, Pidcock beat the likes of Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and Sergio Higuita (Bora-Hansgrohe) in a steep, uphill sprint to win stage four of the Volta ao Algarve. His form was evidently there.
It was a performance for the ages, and arguably his finest victory yet. Since then, Pidcock was forced to sit out Milan-San Remo after being diagnosed with concussion in the aftermath of a crash at Tirreno-Adriatico. He returned to racing in late March at Dwaars door Vlaanderen.
