Tom's Profile

One of the most versatile and exciting young talents to emerge in British Cycling in recent years, Tom Pidcock has his sights set on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where he aims to defend the title he won in Tokyo in 2021, as well as taking on the Olympic Road Race for the first time.

Pidcock has already packed more into his successful young career than many athletes achieve in a lifetime on the road, along with cyclocross, mountain biking and even track.

Born into a cycling family, Pidcock first rode a bike at the age of three, was racing at seven and by the age of 10 had decided to pursue a career as a professional bike rider.

By the time he reached the youth age group, Pidcock was making regular podium appearances in mountain bike, cyclo-cross, road and track; an early insight into the versatility and sheer weight of silverware the sport would see from him in the coming years.

In 2016, the Yorkshire rider made his mark on the international stage with a top-five finish at the 2016 UCI Junior World Cyclo-cross Championships, while also winning a prestigious junior road race in Belgium, La Philippe Gilbert Juniors.

Pidcock opted to concentrate on cyclocross the following season, and was rewarded with his first major title, claiming gold in the UEC Junior European Cyclo-cross Championships in Pontchateau, France in October 2016. 

It was the start of a  successful winter as he took his first podium - a third place - at a UCI Junior Cyclo-cross World Cup meeting in Zeven, German. Entering the UCI World Junior Cyclo-cross Championships in in Bieles, Luxembourg in January 2017 as a heavy favourite, Pidcock did not disappoint and became the first British world champion in the event for 25 years.

After the ‘cross season, Pidcock enjoyed eye-catching victories on the road in 2017, including Paris-Roubaix Juniors and the British National Circuit Race Championships, an elite, senior event that he won despite being only 17.

Pidcock rounded off summer 2017 by winning a junior national title on the track for good measure, in the scratch race, and he claimed his second rainbow jersey of the in the junior time trial at the UCI Road World Championships in Bergen, Norway.

Cyclo-cross continued to bring success including a second UCI Under-23 Cyclo-cross World Cup overall title in 2017, after he won four of the seven races, the Under-23 Superprestige series, the UEC European Cyclo-cross Championships in the Netherlands, the senior British National Championship and, another rainbow jersey at the UCI Cyclo-Cross Under-23 World Championships in Bogense, Denmark, where he beat his old rival Iserbyt by 15 seconds.

In the colours of Wiggins Le Col, Pidcock moved to the road for the 2019 season and won the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs, the under-23 version of the junior race he had won previously.

Pidcock embraced yet another discipline that year, winning the under-23 title at the British National Mountain Bike Championships.  The young Yorkshireman enjoyed a home advantage at the 2019 UCI Road World Championships in Harrogate, where he finished fourth in the under-23 road race but was elevated to the bronze medal position after Nils Eekhoff (Germany) was disqualified for drafting behind a team car.

The 2019-20 season sawfour top-ten finishes in the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup and the UEC European Cyclo-cross Championships and a successful defence of his British national title before he headed to Dubendorf, Switzerland, for the 2020 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in February where he finished second to Dutch rider Mathieu van der Poel.

Pidcock’s summer road schedule, riding for TP Racing, was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so he returned to racing in August gaining his first experience of international mountain biking: the discipline in which he would eventually earn selection for the Tokyo Olympics.

His talent was immediately apparent, with multiple successes in the under-23 category that summer.

As the 2020 road season finally got underway, Pidcock enjoyed a breakout performance at the Giro Ciclisticod’Italia - the amateur version of the famous Italian stage race, knows as the “Baby Giro.”

Riding for Trinity Racing, Pidcock won three stages and the overall leader’s jersey, as well as the mountains classification.

2020 concluded with Pidcock recording wins in two rounds of the UCI Under-23 Mountain Bike Cross-country World Cup to win the overall title, although his most spectacular success was to come in the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Leogang, Austria in October.

Having won the elite electric mountain bike cross-country race,, he won a second rainbow jersey of the week in the under-23 cross-country race, beating Christopher Blevins of the USA by a staggering one minute and 52 seconds. 

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