Cyclo-cross World Championships

29-30 January, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA

- Vern Pitt

Despite entering the Cyclo-cross Worlds as favourite, Tom Pidcock is remaining cool-headed, saying nothing could top the stress of the Olympics.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly on Sunday evening Pidcock said: “I’ve never, ever felt pressure like the Olympics. That was pretty insane, the amount of pressure and stress that an Olympic Games brings… So the Worlds isn’t going to be – it can’t be – anything like that. Now I think everything else is relatively tranquil compared to the Olympics.”

The Brit returned to racing on Saturday after an extended block of training. But it was not the triumphant return he might have hoped for ahead of his bid to become the first ever Brit to become world champion in the discipline. At X2O Trofee Hamme he was fifth after multiple crashes, including losing a gap he had built when he hit his shoe on a post.

“It was really slick on some of those corners,” he said. “I crashed on the first lap, it wasn’t on camera but it was at speed as well. And then I punctured, then made 15 mistakes and crashed again.”

Then on Sunday at the World Cup at Hoogerheide, Pidcock found himself on his own in the lead early on but the group behind worked well to bring him back and he eventually finished third.

He said: “At the end of the day there’s only one race that matters [the Worlds]. I’m a bit disappointed about today but I’m not down about it.”