Pidcock lands as CC contender

British star becomes first ProTeam rider in over a decade to finish on Grand Tour podium

- Adam Becket Photos: Getty Images

You would have had long odds on both 2024 Olympic MTB gold medallists finishing on the podium of a Grand Tour in 2025, but after Pauline Ferrand-Prévot won the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Tom Pidcock completed the double with third at the Vuelta a España.

In the process, Pidcock became the first male Olympic MTB champion to finish on the podium of a Grand Tour, and with Q36.5 Pro Cycling, the first rider from a seconddivision team to be on the podium since 2010, too.

It is hard to overstate the performance. This was Pidcock, after a brutally hard three weeks, finishing third behind Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), and ahead of more established general classification riders like Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BoraHansgrohe), Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale Team).

"I think there's been so much talk around what I can do in Grand Tours and expectation, not really coming from myself to be honest, more from other people - this is a big deal, that I've shown that I can perform," he explained after stage 20.