‘You just want to bury yourself in a hole and hide away’ – Tom Pidcock’s Tour de France hopes dashed amid Tourmalet torment

Instead, he raced home in 15th place alongside Jordan Jegat, Harold Tejada, and Ilan Van Wilder, ceding 8:18 to Pogačar, and he now lies 15th overall at 9:50 off the yellow jersey.

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“I didn’t see his attack. I was already dropped,” Pidcock told TNT Sports after the stage.

“I was very thankful to have Chris Harper there looking after me. In these situations you just want to bury yourself in a hole and hide away.

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“It was very tough. I just don’t have it on the long climbs. I went as hard as I could, and we’ll see what I can do the rest of the race.”

Pidcock said that he knew Pogačar would put in a big attack on stage 6, the first real mountain stage of the Tour, even going so far as to say that the world champion could win the Tour de France on the Tourmalet.

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Obviously, with 15 stages left to run, that hasn’t been confirmed, but he already enjoys a 2:42 advantage over Vingegaard, so he’s now the overwhelming favourite to come out on top in Paris.

“I knew that was going to happen today,” Pidcock said. “They wanted to keep the jersey the day they lost it, and they didn’t manage it. Now it’s like four rest days for him.

“I think today was all the cards on the table and I said this morning ‘Today, Tadej can win the Tour de France’ and with two minutes, yeah…”

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Pidcock, who famously won a Tour stage four years ago on L’Alpe d’Huez, said that he still has goals for this year’s Tour, even if a challenge at the top of the GC standings has fallen by the wayside.

Hopes were high after his podium finish at last year’s Vuelta a España but Pidcock indicated that his preparation for the Tour, especially for riding long climbs such as the Tourmalet, hasn’t been ideal.

“I hope to get better and better,” he said.

“The biggest thing for me is the difficulty on the long climbs, and then crashing in Catalunya and missing the mountain stages, getting sick for a week and missing Suisse. It doesn’t help. So I definitely showed that today.