‘Most unenjoyable race of the year’ – Tom Pidcock accepting of 10th in World Championships after up and down day

Great Britain’s Tom Pidcock settled for 10th in the men’s road race at the World Championships on Sunday, enduring an up and down day off the back of his Vuelta a España podium.

Pidcock told the press pre-race how he hadn’t put any specific focus onto the road race in Kigali, but still wanted to race to try and perform. In the end 10th was what he could muster at the end of a very tough race that saw his sensations ebb and flow.

“Most unenjoyable race of the year,” he said to Eurosport. “It was so hard.”

The 26-year-old appeared to struggle early on in the race, but managed to turn his rhythm around. However, he then suffered again as the toll of the kilometres, altitude and elevation gain set in.

“To be honest, I didn’t feel so good in the start,” he said. “And then I was coming round and into the race, and then I just completely blew. It was survival to the finish. Not much more to say, it was absolutely brutal.”

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Pidcock found his way back into the race at a useful moment, as the chase behind the leader and eventual winner Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) shrank down. As a result, the British rider got within 50 seconds of him, but he and the chasers struggled to hold onto their momentum as the kilometres wore on.

“At one point when it was the five of us away behind Tadej, at that point I thought ‘you know, anything is possible now’, but then the legs fell off,” he said.

Though he is a rider used to winning, or at least being in the contention for the win, there was no automatic disappointment for the Briton, who achieved his main goals earlier in the year and came to Kigali as something of a bonus.

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“I didn’t put any pressure on it, I was thinking about the Vuelta and I came here in the best way I could. I was in the race, I can’t complain, legs fell off, but it is what it is,” he continued.

Outside of the result itself, he did take positives from the way he was able to recover from the Vuelta, where he recorded his best Grand Tour result ever, but likely also his biggest Grand Tour efforts.

With that result in the bag, there also wasn’t much to worry about not being in the medals at the World Championships, where none of the top finishers were in the Vuelta.

“I certainly came out the Vuelta in the best shape I’ve ever come out of a Grand Tour, so it didn’t take me long to recover,” he said.

“To be honest, I think I was the best guy from the guys coming from the Vuelta, so you can’t have everything these days. I did my best, like I said I would, and that’s it.”

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