Tom Pidcock to race mountain bike World Cup in week before Tour de France

Defending mountain bike World and Olympic Champion Tom Pidcock has added an extra World Cup to his schedule for the lead-up to the Paris Olympics and will take in the UCI MTB World Cup round in Crans Montana on June 23 just days before he starts the Tour de France in Florence on June 29.

According to an interview with Cycling Weekly, Pidcock is balancing getting enough volume in for the Tour de France with keeping his off-road skills intact.

"I don't train on my mountain bike as much as I should, but [road and mountain bike] are quite interchangeable," Pidcock said. "Of course now, this time of year, I'm doing longer efforts, in preparation for the Tour, more volume. But they all complement each other."

After racing an abbreviated cyclocross campaign with a single victory in Namur in December, Pidcock chose to skip the UCI Cyclocross World Championships in favour of preparing for the Classics, but he stitched in a victory on the mountain bike in February at the Supercup Massi La Nuca in Spain.

His spring campaign was briefly interrupted when he crashed ahead of the Itzulia Basque Country and did not start the race, but culminated with a win in the Amstel Gold Race before he took a break from the road.

Pidcock competed in the Nove Mesto MTB World Cup at the end of May, besting Nino Schurter and Marcel Guerrini of Switzerland to win the elite men's cross country.

Pidcock's limited off-road schedule is similar to what he undertook in 2021 before claiming the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, except three years ago he didn't race the Tour de France.

The Olympic cross country race for elite men takes place on July 29.