Tom Pidcock made becoming the first Briton to win the men’s elite UCI cyclo-cross world title look easy as he broke away for a comfortable victory in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The 22-year-old from Yorkshire delivered on his status as race favourite to add to the junior and under-23 world titles he had previously won in this discipline, and adds another rainbow jersey to his collection a little over six months after taking Olympic gold on his mountain bike.
With Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel, winners of the last seven titles between them, not competing, Pidcock’s challenge was to counter the superior strength in numbers of the Belgian squad, and he did so by breaking clear after five of the nine laps around the dusty course.
His lead quickly grew as the riders behind debated who might chase, and Pidcock had time to high five the crowd down the finish line before getting into a superman pose on his bike, his margin of victory 30 seconds over Dutchman Lars van der Haar, who outsprinted Belgium’s Eli Iserbyt for silver.
“That was always going to be a super-hard race,” Pidcock said. “The Belgians were trying to ride a tactical race. I found an opportunity and made it stick.
“Without Wout and Mathieu here, I think it became harder to win the race. But we came in with a plan and a process. We stuck to the process and it was good in the end.”
Pidcock’s win came 24 hours after Welsh rider Zoe Bäckstedt, 17, won the women’s junior title.