Tom
Pidcock
United Kingdom
·
Cycling
Data di nascita | 30 Luglio 1999 |
|---|---|
Luogo di nascita | Leeds |
Età | 26 |
Nazionalità | United Kingdom |
Inizio Carriera | 2015 |
Discipline | Mountainbike Cross Country / Cyclocross |
Tom Pidcock grew up with his parents and younger brother Joe in the English county of Yorkshire; a part of the UK with an enviable track record for churning out sporting talent. With both parents keen cyclists, Tom started riding at the age of three and it wasn't long before he'd fallen in love with it.
Although born and raised in the north of England, he actually learned to ride on the paths around the famous Herne Hill Velodrome in London – one of the world's oldest velodromes and, at the time, the only one in the city. From then on, Tom and his bike were rarely seen apart; he'd ride everywhere, on any surface, and would even get in trouble for pulling wheelies on the school playground.
Tom entered his first race at just seven years old at the Castle Combe track in south-west England. It wasn't the most auspicious start to a career, with a slipped chain and a poor finish resulting in a temper tantrum. A few years later, aged 10 and already with dreams of becoming a pro rider, he decided he needed to up his training. He'd set off to school early to do laps of the playing fields before lessons started and badgered his parents to drive him to events. They weren't necessarily too keen to do this – wanting him to just enjoy his cycling while still so young – but there were plenty of challenging races around the hills of Yorkshire for him to test his mettle.
With Tom's talent becoming increasingly obvious, his parents relented and started taking him to national level races. His first big win came at the final stop of the British National Youth Road Series in Scarborough. It was also where he first realised he might have a talent as a hill climber.
Since then, his career's only continued to gather speed, with enviable palmarès across road, track, MTB and cyclo-cross disciplines at youth and U23 level, including wins at national, European and world level. His first elite-level national cyclo-cross title came at the British Championships in Gravesend, Kent in 2019.
More success followed on the road for Tom at the 2020 Giro Ciclistico d’Italia (U-23 Giro d'Italia) when he landed the overall title after winning three stages of the race.
Immediately after that landmark success, Tom swapped road for dirt and entered his first-ever UCI Mountain Bike World Cup races, where he won both Men's U23 races during the double-header event in Nové Město, Czech Republic.
The following weekend, at the very first attempt, he also became a mountain bike world champion by dominating in Leogang, Austria to claim the UCI XCO U23 Mountain Bike World Championships gold medal and don the coveted rainbow stripes for a second time after winning the Junior Cyclocross world title in 2016.
Celebrating XCO victory in Switzerland
© Bartek Woliński/Red Bull Content Pool
Relaxing in between Grand Tours
© Bartek Woliński/Red Bull Content Pool
Taking the World Championship win
© Bartek Woliński/Red Bull Content Pool
Tom Pidcock mette in scena una masterclass di discesa sulle Alpi tedesche
© Bartek Woliński/Red Bull Content Pool