Tom Pidcock aiming higher than top 10 at Tour de France

After what he views as a disappointing Tour de France in 2023, Tom Pidcock is setting clear and ambitious goals for himself in 2024.

Even before practice started in Herentals, which was Pidock’s first cyclocross appearance this season, the Ineos rider was already looking ahead to the 2024 road season. In conversation with Sporza, Pidcock revealed his Tour ambitions, hinted at Olympic dreams and limited fans expectations of his winter cyclocross season.

Tour top 10 “isn’t really a motivation”

Pidcock arrived at the 2023 Tour de France with an open mind and no specific goals. But, after his spectacular win on Alpe d’Huez in 2022, he probably had some sort of success in mind. On Saturday, he repeated his previously stated disappointment with the result of that strategy.

“Last year I didn’t really know what I wanted and what the team wanted. I didn’t have a clear goal and I paid the price for that. I came home with nothing.”

The Ineos racer clearly learned from that hard lesson. With the calendar still counting down the last days of 2023, he’s clear on his goal for Paris in July, mostly.

“This year, I want to full focus on the general classification.” Pidcock says.

“I won’t be able to say specifically what my goal is until later,” the Briton added, but clarified that a top 10 “That’s not really my motivation.”

With top 10 not enough and his focus on GC, the Britton is aiming high. Whether that means a win or a podium will remain to be seen, but Pidcock isn’t holding back, saying “I believe in myself more than last year.”

Olympics, but not a defence?

When Pidock does believe in himself, he has a strong track record of achieving his goals. Along with his road successes, cyclocross world championships and cross country mountain bike rainbows, he already has an Olympic gold medal to his name. In Tokyo, he rose above pre-race favourites Nino Schurter and Mathieu van der Poel to win the men’s XCO in his first Olympic appearance.

With the Games landing in Paris this summer, Pidcock has his eye on another Olympic achievement.

“”Hopefully I come away from the Tour very well for the Olympics,” he said on Saturday. The Briton didn’t specific if his Olympic ambition is a defence of his XCO gold in Toko or he has eyes on the road race. But his rival, Mathieu van der Poel, has recently stated that finishing the Tour de France and being ready for the start line of the Olympic XCO just a few days later would be an impossible task.

Wout’s warning: no cross worlds

One casualty of Pidcock defining his summer ambitions so early appears to be cyclocross world championships. Pidcock says he will not be aiming to reclaim his rainbow jersey this winter.

“It will be a long summer with the Tour de France and the Olympics. It will be difficult to race so late in the year with the cyclocross World Championships,” Pidcock explained. “If I go to the World Championships, I have to prepare 100% – for the respect for the event. I don’t want to go through that.”

It is a lesson he says he learned from Wout van Aert’s failed cross world championships bid last year.

“It is also difficult mentally,” Pidcock said, “Wout van Aert lost last year and said that it was difficult for him during the road season.”

After a resounding loss to van der Poel on Saturday in Herentals, Pidcock’s decision to ditch worlds doesn’t sound like the worst idea.

With van Aert already conceding he will sit out cross worlds to prepare for the Classics and now Pidcock skipping world champs with eyes on a busy July, Mathieu van der Poel’s road to another rainbow jersey is getting easier every week.