A year after being “deselected” from the Ineos Grenadiers line-up for the Italian monument race Il Lombardia, Tom Pidcock has finished La Vuelta, one of cycling’s three grand tours, on the podium, taking third place behind the overall winner Jonas Vingegaard and João Almeida in second.
“To be honest, I’m really proud of myself,” Pidcock said after a phenomenal performance on the rough, steep slopes of Bola del Mundo on stage 20. “It’s the biggest performance of my career. Now I can just enjoy myself.”
Unfortunately for Pidcock, however, he was unable to enjoy being on the actual podium in Madrid on Sunday as pro-Palestine activists protesting against the participation of Israel-Premier Tech disrupted the final stage, knocking over barriers and crowding the finish line and multiple sections of the route.
Stage 21 was cancelled on Sunday in an anti-climactic finale
DANIEL GONZALEZ/EPA
The organisers cancelled stage 21 after 51km and there was no stage winner and no final race celebrations — an anti-climax to a hard-fought race.
Pidcock’s third place may not seem exceptional to the outside eye, as the second of the losers, perhaps. But let’s put it into context: the 26-year-old finished ahead of the 2022 Giro d’Italia winner Jai Hindley and 2023 Vuelta winner Sepp Kuss, as well as the two-times grand-tour winner Egan Bernal. All of these are riders that compete for cycling’s big-budget, so-called “super teams”, while Pidcock rides for Q36.5, a second-tier Pro Team.
The Yorkshireman’s transformation makes him now possibly one of the most versatile of any cyclists. How many riders have won mountain biking Olympic gold medals, world championships in mountain biking and cyclocross, Strade Bianche, Amstel Gold, the Queen Stage atop Alpe d’Huez at the Tour de France and also finished on the podium at a grand tour?
So why did Ineos Grenadiers, Britain’s only super team, with an estimated budget of about £50million, deselect him from Il Lombardia in 2024 and then lose him to a Swiss, second-division Pro Team with an estimated budget of about £20-30million? And why couldn’t the top British team get the best out of him?
Pidcock enjoyed success at Ineos, including winning the Amstel Gold Race last year, but felt restricted over his schedule
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There is something ironic at play. The management at Ineos are believed to have wanted Pidcock to commit himself to grand-tour riding and were not entirely happy with his desire to race in mountain biking, cyclocross and one-day races too — fearing injury in particular. Ineos, née Team Sky, have always had a clear raison d’être: to win grand tours, particularly the Tour de France. When they signed Pidcock in 2021 it was with this in mind and he soon became their highest-paid rider.
Pidcock had a great deal of success with the team and no one could doubt his talent, but the Netflix Tour de France documentary Unchained laid bare tensions between their star rider and management. In one scene Pidcock believes he isn’t getting the support he needs and is asked to sacrifice himself for his team-mate, Carlos Rodríguez.
People close to Pidcock have said that the scene was overplayed and out of context — as can sometimes be the case in sporting documentaries. But clearly something was not aligning at the team and Pidcock was soon courted by another.
There was a feeling among Ineos that this was also the correct decision for them. Pidcock did not align with their goals and so the ending was “amicable”. But it appears to be a huge mistake for a team who haven’t won a grand tour since 2021 and have looked a shadow of their former Team Sky selves. If they had allowed Pidcock the freedom he wanted, perhaps he would still be there.
“It was not necessarily anybody’s fault,” Pidcock said at the time. “There was new management and new objectives. Our paths didn’t really align any more. It was not a difficult decision.”
Pidcock’s two Olympic golds highlight his status as one of the most versatile riders around
GREG BAKER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
The super team also lost key members of staff including Dan Bigham and Steve Cummings during this period, as well as the riders Ethan Hayter to Soudal-Quick-Step and 2020 Giro winner Tao Geoghegan Hart to Lidl-Trek.
Then there is the British talent that Ineos should have had but never did: Matthew Brennan (of Visma-Lease a Bike) and Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL) spring immediately to mind. There was a time when the best British talent was at the best British team but now most British success is coming from outside that team. Ineos are failing to make the key decisions that could restore them to their former glory.
Ciro Scognamiglio, a journalist for La Gazzetta dello Sport, wrote on X that Ineos believe signing Onley, who finished fourth at the Tour de France this year, for 2026 is “possible” despite the rider’s three-year deal taking him to the end of 2027 with Picnic.
If this is true, there must be a question in the 22-year-old Scot’s mind about whether he would even want to go to the team. At Picnic he is the de facto leader, with the retirement of the veteran Frenchman Romain Bardet, and has grown with the Dutch team since he joined their development ranks in 2021. Having witnessed Pidcock leave Ineos for Q36.5 and then manage to podium the Vuelta, what was once a given might now feel a dilemma.
Talented young riders like Onley are now far less likely to go to Ineos than in the past
JEAN CATUFFE/GETTY IMAGES
Ineos Grenadiers, with their “marginal gains” mentality and tunnel-vision goals, are no longer the dream that they once were for a young rider looking to develop and enjoy racing. The moment Pidcock got on a Scott bike for Q36.5 in January he looked like a different rider. He enjoyed cycling again and he quickly began to win, taking two stages of the AlUla Tour and the overall general classification before going head to head with Tadej Pogacar at Strade Bianche to finish second. Not to mention his cross-country mountain bike victories over the summer.
The key point is freedom.
“The difference was mainly in the belief in me and our shared vision of success,” Pidcock said in an interview with WielerFlits in December. “I have the freedom [at Q36.5] to ride the races I want.”
Some riders look for the strict and structured team approach but perhaps for a rider like Pidcock the opposite was necessary. Here is where the irony lies: a team that wanted him to focus on grand-tour general classification could never get him to perform at his best in those races. But now unleashed, able to ride the races he wants and train his way, he has managed to show that he has what it takes to compete at the very top.
He still has a long way to go, particularly in the longest mountain efforts and time-trials, but as Q36.5 bolster their ranks, adding Britain’s Fred Wright from next year as well as Ireland’s Eddie Dunbar and Australia’s Chris Harper, Pidcock will also have a team to support his new lofty ambitions.
Vingegaard won his third grand tour but was denied a podium ceremony
DARIO BELINGHERI/GETTY IMAGES
He is still a young rider at a new team. But this Vuelta has shown he has formidable staying power and has gained the level of focus needed for a three-week race, and it will give him the confidence that he is capable of being the rider he believes he can be — and perhaps, just perhaps, a future grand-tour winner.
Visma’s Vingegaard, meanwhile, rode a solid and mature race under hard conditions to win his third grand tour and show why he is second only to Pogacar in these events. As well as the protests, the two-times Tour de France winner was dealing with illness as he defended attacks from Almeida of UAE Team Emirates-XRG. He rallied with his team-mates and took a comfortable and unflappable win. It is a shame that it ended not on the podium under the sun, but rather on a side road in the shade of the trees.
General classification final results (stage 21 cancelled) 1 J Vingegaard (Den, Visma-Lease a Bike) 72hr 53min 57sec; 2 J Almeida (Por, UAE Team Emirates-XRG) at 1min 16sec behind; 3 T Pidcock (GB, Q36.5 Pro Cycling) 3:11; 4 J Hindley (Aus, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) 3:41; 5 M Riccitello (US, Israel-Premier Tech) 5:55; 6 G Pellizzari (It, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) 7:23; 7 S Kuss (US, Visma | Lease a Bike) 7:45; 8 F Gall (Austria, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) 7:50; 9 T Traeen (Nor, Bahrain Victorious) 9:48; 10 M Jorgenson (US, Visma-Lease a Bike) 12:1