Tom Pidcock eyes world cyclo-cross glory to maintain his meteoric rise

Ambitions are high and talk is cheap in January, before the bike racing season has truly got going. However, when Tom Pidcock says that a win in Sunday’s world cyclo-cross championship might be the first step in a hat-trick of world titles this year, it’s far more than mere motivational talk. At 22, the Yorkshire racer’s career has already been so prolific, his improvement curve so steeply inclined, that it’s hard to be sceptical.

First up, Sunday, when Pidcock will start as favourite in the cyclo-cross in Fayetteville, Arkansas, hoping to add to his junior title from 2017 and his under-23 rainbow jersey from 2019. He came close to winning twice last weekend in his final warm-up races and believes he will kick on this week. “I’d come off a big block of training and didn’t back off going into the races, it wasn’t exactly what I’d planned but it wasn’t a big issue. After a bit of rest and getting over the jet lag I’ll be good this weekend.”

Cyclo-cross was something of a Cinderella discipline in the UK until the last few years when fields in local races have grown drastically, competitors drawn by a sport which is traffic free and accessible, if far from easy. A cyclo-cross is a brief, intense circuit race, run off road on courses devised to challenge the riders’ bike handling, with multiple dog-leg corners, jumps, off-camber sections and stairs. In wet weather, the courses become a mudbath, with the racers forced to run with their bikes.

“It’s low profile, certainly in the UK,” Pidcock said. “But it’s growing. It’s the most difficult thing I do – the weather, the physical aspect, how intense it is and how much you have to concentrate. You’re flat out mentally. At Christmas I did four in five days, and it’s harder than a