Tom Pidcock – and “nobody else” – will be setting Tom Pidcock’s objectives for the 2024 Tour de France. The Ineos Grenadiers star, expected to be eyeing a GC result in this year’s race and, more generally, a GC-oriented future, spoke on the subject in a recent interview with the PA Media news agency.
“I completely understand where I want to be and what I need to do to achieve it,” Pidcock said before the Tour de Suisse, which got underway on Sunday. “It’s not always simple, but the people in my corner, they know how I work.”
With a palmarès that already includes an Olympic gold medal on the mountain bike, world titles in that discipline and cyclocross, and wins in the Amstel Gold Race, Strade Bianche, and a Tour de France stage on the road, Pidcock’s young career has seen him turn his hugely versatile skillset into stellar results across multiple disciplines. That said, the former winner of the Baby Giro has long been seen as a potential GC star for the team that once dominated the Grand Tours.
At least up to this point, the 24-year-old Brit has not yet delivered any especially notable GC results at the WorldTour level, but he will have another chance this week at the Tour de Suisse and then at the upcoming Tour de France after a disappointing 13th place finish last year.
Pidcock was not, in fact, his team’s best-placed rider in the 2023 Tour, as Carlos Rodríguez secured fifth overall in Paris. According to reports, the soon-to-be-released new season of Netflix’s Tour de France: Unchained docuseries will reveal that there was some tension between Pidcock and his team at that race when management asked Pidcock to work for Rodríguez.
Pidcock’s recent comments avoided criticism of his team, but altogether they would suggest that he will continue to do things his way, and on his timetable, moving forward.
“I’m going to decide what I want my Tour to be this year, nobody else,” Pidcock said. “Otherwise you don’t get anything from me. I need to be able to believe in my mission at the Tour.”
Balancing Pidcock’s desire for autonomy with the team’s wider goals will be a pivotal challenge for team management this season and beyond. Pidcock is signed through the 2027 season and will likely be the face of the Ineos Grenadiers for years to come, but Rodriguez – a year younger and fourth overall at the recent Critérium du Dauphiné – also signed an extension last offseason that keeps him around for the same term. The squad will be hoping to garner a big Grand Tour result in one way or another in the short term as the days of Sky’s three-week brilliance fade further and further into the distant past.
The team has already publicly stated that Pidcock’s Tour campaign this year will have a GC focus, but how that will play out in conjunction with Rodríguez’s ambitions remains to be seen. Indeed, whether Pidcock’s own aspirations can come to fruition will be up to Pidcock himself.
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