Tom Pidcock could launch a concerted GC bid at the 2023 Tour de France, but his first focus is on fighting his way back from a knee injury that has bugged him for nearly two years and delayed his 2022-23 cyclo-cross campaign.
In the absence of Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal, the 23-year-old was the sole Ineos Grenadiers representative at the presentation of the route for the 2023 Tour in Paris on Thursday, having lit up the race on his debut this year with a stage win on Alpe d'Huez, several days in the white jersey, and 16th place overall.
Pidcock flew to Paris from Los Angeles, where he was beginning to lay the foundations for the coming season. Time on the bike was light, with the priority being to fix and finally fully recover from his nagging knee pain.
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“I went to LA with the help of the team and Red Bull to do a more intensive rehab programme. We hope to carry it on now and try and get rid of it once and for all," Pidcock told Cyclingnews in Paris.
“I had it since February last year, so it's been ongoing. I can still ride my bike, I just have knee pain when I do it. We went through phases where it was good then passes where it wasn't.
“It's not really performance inhibiting. The main thing is my sprint. I can't sprint in training because it hurts, so this year my sprint hasn't been nearly as good as last year. That's the issue now.”
Pidcock, who earlier this year extended with Ineos through 2027, added: “Especially now, signing a long contract, we want to get on top of it."
The ongoing rehab means that Pidcock has yet to get his cyclo-cross campaign underway. The season is young and has only just reached European soil but still, there's no fixed date for the world champion's return to the fields.
“I haven't got a schedule yet," Pidcock said. "I think I might start in three weeks, but I actually haven't had the conversation yet. My coach has COVID so we didn't have the conversation last week on the training camp."
Tour ambitions
However this winter shapes up, Pidcock has his sights set on the Tour de France in 2023. Tellingly, and perhaps fittingly for a rider of such diverse talents, his first response to the route was to say: "It’s kind of up to me to figure out what I want to do in the Tour next year."
Pidcock is already world cyclo-cross champion, mountain bike Olympic champion, Classics champion and Tour de France stage winner. He could target any number of stages on the route next year but is perhaps thinking bigger.
“One day I want to try and win the Tour. Whether I'm good enough next year, I don't know," he told Cyclingnews, hinting that his whole season could be structured with that in mind.
“Maybe we put some more stage races in the calendar before, to build up on the climbing and the race kilometres on the climbs. But I don't really know."
Despite the more explosive efforts of CX, MTB and the Classics, the signs have always been there that Pidcock possesses the engine to become a legitimate Grand Tour contender, having won the U23 Giro in 2020.
His debut at the Tour this year – itself a fast-track deviation from the original plan of the Giro – merely underlined the point. Despite his preparation being disrupted by illness, he won a big mountain stage to the top of Alpe d'Huez, as well as starting the final week in the top 10.
“It certainly gave me confidence, especially with the lead-in – the last-minute decision to go, then COVID, missing those mountain stages in Tour de Suisse. All that contributed to not having the best preparation, and yet I still had a really good Tour.
“Also the experience and understanding of how the Tour is... it's nice to be able to go back to the Tour knowing what to expect."
