Tom Pidcock celebrates victory in the cross country Olympic race held in Glentress Forest, Scotland. Tom Pidcock, the Olympic champion, secured a memorable gold medal in the world championships in the Tweed Valley, dominating the final laps of the cross-country Olympic discipline. Pidcock, who became the first British man to win the title, held off a late chase from New Zealand’s Sam Gaze, after moving into the lead at the start of the last two laps.
“It’s a big relief,” Pidcock said of his victory. “It’s been a long week building up to this. In front of the home crowd, it’s pretty special. The last few laps were so stressful. My gears were not working well. They were jumping, up every climb. Gaze was coming and I thought it could all go in the bin at any moment.”
The race started dramatically when Mathieu van der Poel came to grief on a right-hand downhill corner just before the end of the start loop, tumbling on to the same right side that he had injured when crashing during his world road race win in Glasgow a week earlier. The Dutch rider abandoned the race immediately, forgoing hopes of becoming the first male rider to hold world cyclo-cross, road and mountain bike titles in one season.
But the sense that the mountain-biking community had been forced into kowtowing to Pidcock, Van der Poel and the former Tour de France green jersey winner Peter Sagan persisted, after more than 20 elite men and women racers, […]
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