One of the 40 debutants at the Tour de France this year, the third-youngest, Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), has enjoyed an opening eight days to race better than most of his fellow neophytes.
The 22-year-old has a fourth place to his name on the hilly finish in Longwy and currently lies seventh overall after finishing 14th on La Super Planche des Belles Filles – ahead of GC men such as Nairo Quintana, Damiano Caruso, and Aleksandr Vlasov.
In addition to all that, Sunday’s stage 9 through the Alps to Châtel also marked Pidcock’s fourth day in the white young rider’s jersey, which he’s wearing as Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) is in yellow. The opening half of his debut Tour has been a successful one, he told Cyclingnews at the stage 9 start in Aigle.
“I think it’s been a pretty successful start,” Pidcock said. “I mean, yeah, I kind of have high expectations of myself and judge my performances on other people’s – like Wout [van Aert] for example is a competitor in across the Classics.
“But in reality, he’s already done two Tours de France so I can’t expect to be at the front straight away. I have time to learn and grow and get there. Not being so near a stage as I would have liked, but I can only do my best.
“But if I step back, I’m top 10 in GC, I’ve been up there in a few stages. It’s not bad at all.”
Having completed his debut Grand Tour at last year’s Vuelta a España, Pidcock remains on a learning curve at the Tour, despite his strong start this July. He said ahead of the Grand Départ that he’d have his own chances to grab a result – see the uphill dash in Longwy – as well as putting himself to work for Ineos Grenadiers’ GC leaders.
With the Alps coming up, he wouldn’t reveal any details of Ineos’ mountain tactics as the team looks to take the fight to Pogačar and second-placed Jonas Vingegaard, though he did say that he and the team will evaluate his own race in the coming days.
“Well, it’s a surprise,” Pidcock said in response to a question about whether his team will try a surprise attack in the Alps. “So, if I tell you I’ll have to kill you.
“For me, I think the most you can learn is in the first week for a GC rider. Once you get past the first week then you’re going to the mountains where everything is simpler and I can kind of learn the aspect whether I’m in GC or not. So yeah, now it’s great. But after today, we’ll evaluate to see if I should lose some time, and maybe go for some stages.”
As well as talking about his race so far and…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…