One of the 40 debutants at the Tour de France this year, the third-youngest, Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), has enjoyed an opening eight days to race better than most of his fellow neophytes.
The 22-year-old has a fourth place to his name on the hilly finish in Longwy and currently lies seventh overall after finishing 15th on stage 9 to Châtel les Portes du Soleil – ahead of GC men such as Nairo Quintana, Damiano Caruso, and Aleksandr Vlasov.
In addition to all that, at the conclusion of Sunday's climbing through the Alps to Châtel also marked Pidcock's fifth day in the white young rider's jersey, which he's wearing as Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) is in yellow. The opening half of his debut Tour has been a successful one, he told Cyclingnews at the stage 9 start in Aigle.
"I think it's been a pretty successful start," Pidcock said. "I mean, yeah, I kind of have high expectations of myself and judge my performances on other people's – like Wout [van Aert], for example, is a competitor across the Classics.
"But in reality, he's already done two Tours de France so I can't expect to be at the front straight away. I have time to learn and grow and get there. Not been as near a stage as I would have liked, but I can only do my best.
"But if I step back, I'm top 10 in GC, I've been up there in a few stages. It's not bad at all."
Having completed his debut Grand Tour at last year's Vuelta a España, Pidcock remains on a learning curve at the Tour, despite his strong start this July. He said ahead of the Grand Départ that he'd have his own chances to grab a result – see the uphill dash in Longwy – as well as putting himself to work for Ineos Grenadiers' GC leaders.
With the Alps coming up, he wouldn't reveal any details of Ineos' mountain tactics as the team looks to take the fight to Pogačar and second-placed Jonas Vingegaard, though he did say that he and the team will evaluate his own race in the coming days.
"Well, it's a surprise," Pidcock said in response to a question about whether his team will try a surprise attack in the Alps. "So, if I tell you I'll have to kill you.
"For me, I think the most you can learn is in the first week for a GC rider. Once you get past the first week then you're going to the mountains where everything is simpler and I can kind of learn the aspect whether I'm in GC or not. So yeah, now it's great. But after today, we'll evaluate to see if I should lose some time, and maybe go for some stages."
As well as talking about his race so far and the Ineos Grenadiers team plan – or rather, pointedly not talking about it – Pidcock also gave his thoughts on the risk of COVID-19 further affecting the race.
The virus stopped five riders, including QuickStep-AlphaVinyl's Tim Declercq, from taking the start of the Tour, while on Sunday Cofidis climber Guillaume Martin became the third rider in two days to leave the race following a positive test.
Pidcock, who caught the illness in the mass outbreak at the Tour de Suisse last month, said he felt comfortable about the risks posed by the virus going forward, with his recent infection giving him an immunity 'boost' in addition to already taken vaccine doses.
"I'm feeling quite comfortable about it. I think I'm alright. Me and Adam were saying 'it's me and Adam in Paris' - one-two!" he said, joking that the Ineos pair would be the last men standing in the peloton thanks to their natural immunity. "It wouldn't be great if it did kick off, you know? At the same time, I'm safe, but it's not right really, is it.
"We're not [testing every day]," he added. "There's no point testing if you don't have symptoms, is there? It's a normal illness. Like if you're ill, you're ill and you can't race. It's not like if you have COVID but no symptoms you go home. We test when we need to test. If someone's ill, they're ill."
