Tom Pidcock is the reigning cross-country Olympic mountain bike champion who will be defending his title in Paris. He will also be taking part in the road race.
The 24-year-old Yorkshireman was forced to pull out of the Tour de France a little under two weeks ago after testing positive for Covid, but now he says, “I’m fine.”
Cycling since age three
Raised by parents who were keen cyclists, he started cycling as a three-year-old and soon fell in love with the sport. He first took part in a competition as a seven-year-old.
As his talent blossomed, he coaxed his parents to take him to national-level races.
His breakthrough came at the British National Youth Road Series in Scarborough, where he won and gained recognition as a hill climber.
In 2017, he became the UCI junior world cyclo-cross champion.
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String of victories
Pidcock turned professional at 21. Since then, he has won the cross-country mountain bike titles at the Tokyo Olympics and the 2023 World Championships. He also won the 2022 Cyclo-cross World Championships and the prestigious spring road classics, Strade Bianche in Italy in 2023, and the 2024 Amstel Gold Race in the Netherlands.
He will be defending his mountain bike title on a course in Élancourt Hill, 25 miles west of Paris. At 231 metres, the site is the highest point in the Paris region, and the course consists of manmade gravel switchbacks.
“It’s bland and I think they could have done a better job of making a more mountain bike course,” said Pidcock.
“We love mountain biking for the reasons that drive us to enjoy it for what it is. That’s the courses you get to ride, the places you get to go to. When you just gravel over a nice hillside, it’s not really mountain bike.”