{"id":790350,"date":"2026-07-09T11:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T11:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/790350\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T11:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T11:03:16","slug":"tom-pidcock-reassesses-his-2026-tour-de-france-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/790350\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Pidcock reassesses his 2026 Tour de France goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like all the other general classification contenders, Tom Pidcock<\/a> is gearing up for the first real climbing test in the Tour de France<\/a>. In the winter, The 26-year-old Brit expressed his ambition since to aim for a strong GC result at the Tour de France. But his coach, Kurt Bogaerts, told IDL Pro Cycling that this might no longer be a realistic goal in 2026.First things first: Pidcock didn\u2019t get off to a bad start at all in the Tour de France. Pinarello-Q36.5 put up a valiant fight in the team time trial<\/a>, and in Stage 2, the Q36.5 team leader finished alongside<\/a> the other general classification contenders. A day later, in the stage to Les Angles won by Tadej Pogacar, Pidcock lost a bit more time. But that seemed to be mainly due to the heat.After the stage, Pidcock complained<\/a> about the extreme temperatures, which rose above 40 degrees. He called the conditions \u201cridiculous,\u201d comparing them to \u201ca war zone.\u201d \u201cI think we went through about 10,000 water bottles today,\u201d he added. \u201cI had absolutely nothing left in the final stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"tom-pidcock\"\/<\/p>\n

Tom Pidcock finished 18 seconds behind the winner in Stage 3<\/p>\n

Coach clarifies Pidcock’s comments after stage 3 of the Tour de France<\/p>\n

Bogaerts had also heard Pidcock\u2019s comments, but he qualified them somewhat. \u201cTom had a bit of a setback because he got sick three weeks before the Tour. As a result, he\u2019s a little behind schedule. And the better your fitness, the better you can handle different conditions. Stages 3 and 4 are definitely exceptional days. And maybe the coming days will be, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pidcock\u2019s Belgian coach spoke of 160 water bottles for 8 riders in Stage 3, plus ice, slushies, and other ways to cool down. \u201cTom lost 18 seconds; that wasn\u2019t spectacular.\u201d And if he\u2019d been in fifth place going into that final climb, he would have lost almost nothing. But X number of teams were still ahead. Now he was pushed to the limit, and that makes it tough with all those hairpin turns,\u201d Bogaerts said.<\/p>\n

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\"tom-pidcock\"\/Pidcock and his coach have made up their minds about their Tour de France ambitions<\/p>\n

So we shouldn\u2019t make too much of the time lost in the third stage. Still, Bogaerts emphasised that it\u2019s not just a matter of luck that Pidcock, even in stages that suit him well, didn\u2019t keep up with the very best. And so the question is justified: are the ambitions for the Tour de France, as stated this winter, still realistic?<\/p>\n

“Tom has a team that believes in him wholeheartedly. They\u2019re behind him, but for Tom and me, it\u2019s pretty clear,” said Bogaerts. “We want to finish the Tour\u2014that\u2019s a goal. And above all, we want to come out of it motivated, so we can return next year with appropriate ambitions. He ultimately didn\u2019t have the right preparation for this Tour, so he also needs to rediscover the joy of racing in the Tour.”<\/p>\n

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\"tom-pidcock\"\/Will Pidcock win a stage at the Tour de France?<\/p>\n

It all sounds a bit strange, as if Pidcock and Bogaerts are already waving the white flag, even before the Brit has actually pulled away. He\u2019s heading into the sixth stage over the Col d\u2019Aspin and Tourmalet just 1.22 minutes behind Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard. And yet: \u201cHe wants to see where his limit lies in the general classification and how far he can go, but that\u2019s not really on the table right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the future, a Tour de France general classification finish would certainly be a dream, but Bogaerts emphasizes that Pidcock would prefer a stage win over a top-ten finish, especially after he already made it to the podium at the 2025 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a>. \u201cTom wants to excel in the biggest race of the year\u2014by winning stages and, someday, by competing for the overall classification.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"tom-pidcock\"\/<\/p>\n

A crash in Catalonia put a bit of a damper on Pidcock’s Tour ambitions<\/p>\n

Crash in Catalonia disrupted Pidcock’s Tour de France preparation<\/p>\n

Maybe Pidcock will surprise us on day six, and Bogaerts\u2019 comments were too defensive. \u201cHe needs to get through the first week well, with the Tourmalet as the real test. Given the interruption in his preparation, our main goal now is to stay in contention during the first week and then see how we can bring something home. I think winning a stage is very important in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because, as Bogaerts emphasized: \u201cCatalonia threw everything off a bit,\u201d said the Belgian, referring to Pidcock\u2019s hard crash into a ravine in March. He suffered a knee injury but returned to racing fairly quickly. \u201cHowever, we no longer knew where he stood, partly because we couldn\u2019t see here in Catalonia how he measured up against someone like Vingegaard.\u201d<\/p>\n

“He was feeling really great, but when you can’t do anything for eleven days, that’s very unusual. If Tom still manages to finish in the top 5 here in the Tour, that would be quite a surprise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like all the other general classification contenders, Tom Pidcock is gearing up for the first real climbing test…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82,43201,262636],"class_list":["post-790350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-tom-pidcock","tag-tour-de-france-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}