Tom Pidcock has laid the blame for his disappointing performance during Saturday's stage 14 at the Tour de France on not eating enough during the arduous trek through the Alps.
The Briton finished the stage to Morzine 8:40 down on stage winner, Ineos Grenadiers teammate Carlos Rodríguez, after dropping towards the top of the penultimate climb of the Col de la Ramaz.
He'd end the day dropping only three places on the GC – from eighth to 11th – but now finds himself well out of contention for a top five place, moving from 32 seconds away from fifth to 9:02 back on Adam Yates.
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"I need to evaluate a little bit, but I think I just didn't have enough energy," Pidcock told CyclingWeekly after finishing the stage. "Yesterday was a late stage, a late dinner, and I just couldn't really eat enough. It wasn't complicated."
Pidcock said that he had imagined going on the attack on the final climb of the day, the HC-rated Col de Joux Plane. But come the day, the mountain played host to another Jonas Vingegaard-Tadej Pogačar battle from an elite group of seven as the 23-year-old fought on minutes behind.
"It was very hard day. It's a shame really – I was full of confidence this morning," he said. "I envisioned doing this epic attack over the top of the Col de Joux Plane and we started full gas and I just didn't really have it in me."
Pidcock dropped away from the favourites group inside the final 2km of the Col de la Ramaz with just over 51km left to race on the stage. With a deficit of 30 seconds at the summit, there was hope that his fearsome descending skills would bring him back into the picture in time for the stint in the valley roads ahead of the Joux Plane.
However, he instead found himself losing time on the way down and lying at two minutes down at the base of the final climb leading a small group including Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates), and Dylan Van Baarle (Jumbo-Visma).
Up the road, Rodríguez was on his way to capturing Ineos Grenadiers' second win in two days following Michał Kwiatkowski's stage 13 triumph to the Grand Colombier, but Pidcock was unaware, having taken out his radio.
"I thought maybe I could save a bit over Ramaz and maybe come back but I was just cooked," he told CyclingWeekly. "Then I took my radio out so as I came back to the bus everyone was saying congratulations and I was thinking 'what is everyone saying congratulations for?' before I found out that Carlos won. That made [the day] a bit better."
