THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

When necessity called, Tom Pidcock's mum stepped up - and transformed a cancelled Vuelta podium into an unforgettable car-park celebration, as Chris Marshall-Bell discovers

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When pro-Palestine protesters forced the early abandonment of the Vuelta a España's final stage in September - the fourth stage of the race to be curtailed - it triggered a chain reaction.

In the weeks that followed, Israel-Premier Tech, the focus of the protests, backtracked on earlier assurances and announced a new name and nationality, accepting that their future in the sport was untenable without change. The immediate consequence, however, was the cancellation of the podium ceremony for the GC top-three and the jersey winners. Race victor Jonas Vingegaard was understandably peeved. "Yeah, it's shit to end it like this," he muttered inside a Visma-Lease a Bike car, in footage later shown in the team's post-race documentary.

It seemed as though everyone would simply drift away - an anticlimactic conclusion to 21 tense, turbulent days.

That was until Tom Pidcock's mum, Sonja, stepped in with other ideas, laying the groundwork for what became the most spontaneous and intimate Grand Tour celebration in history - or, as social media later declared it, the best podium ceremony of all time.

Stolen thunder

Sonja and her husband Giles were in Madrid ready to celebrate their son's third-placed finish in the race. When it became apparent that that wouldn't be happening as planned, Sonja spoke with Q36.5's billionaire owner Ivan Glasenberg at the team's hotel. “I said to Ivan, 'This isn't fair – these young men have put all this effort in and have been robbed of their glory',” Sonja, who organises the Otley Cycle Races, recounts to CW. “I told him we should organise a podium.”