'I had a point to prove... as team leader, it's all on me'

It's been a long three weeks for Tom Pidcock at the Giro d'Italia but both he and his Q36.5 team broke new ground at one of cycling's most storied races, as he tells Flo Clifford

- Flo Clifford

Tom Pidcock's first Giro d'Italia has been a "challenging" one.

Sitting in a hotel on the outskirts of Rome, only a few hours before the race's final stage, the Q36.5 rider is visibly tired, but says there are plenty of positives to take from the team's first grand tour.

"We came in pretty ambitious, and we got a bit of a reality check, I think," he admits. "We came here knowing that it was going to be challenging, but also, we wanted to come out better.

We didn't achieve that stage win or that top 10 on GC [general classification], but I think for a first attempt, it's not the end of the world. It's definitely the best grand tour I've ever ridden in terms of how I feel on the last day." Pidcock's experience of grand tours in general has been mixed, from the high of his dazzling win on Alpe d'Huez in the 2022 Tour de France, to a series of top-20 overall finishes: solid achievements but below where he wants to be.

The Red Bull athlete finished 16th overall in Rome, 44 minutes behind Simon Yates, while a stage win eluded him despite his and the team's best efforts. Four top-10 places - including fifth on the opening stage in Albania and third on stage five - were "a bit frustrating, but then again it was not bad". He rues a missed opportunity on stage 20, when his radio broke and he wasn't aware the peloton had split going through a cobbled town, meaning he missed the breakaway. "I was pretty pissed off," he admits.

Now halfway through his first season since his contentious departure from British juggernaut Ineos Grenadiers, Pidcock's enthusiasm about Q36.5 remains undimmed. He is open about having "a new lease of life" with the team, who sit the tier below World Tour teams like Ineos and Yates's Visma-Lease a Bike, and are dependent on wildcards for access to the biggest races.