Tom Pidcock says he ‘came of age’ after beating Mathieu van der Poel to win the Superprestige Gavere
Tom Pidcock said he felt he “came of age” after beating three-time world cyclocross champion Mathieu van der Poel to win the Telenet Superprestige Gavere.
Pidcock, 21, made a fast start in Belgium, riding away from the field on the first of eight laps before Van der Poel brought him back.
Pidcock and Van der Poel were then joined by the Belgian rider Toon Aerts and the trio proceeded to mark each other in the middle stages of the race before Aerts was dropped by a Pidcock acceleration.
That made it a shoot-out between the British champion and the world champion, with Pidcock riding away from Van der Poel on lap six and holding on to win by 25 seconds.
“To be honest, I don’t know what to say, today I think I came of age,” Pidcock said.
“I think the past years I’ve been bad at the starts, so I’ve been working on them and trying to improve and I know if I can do a good first lap and then not already be in the red after one lap then I can have a lot more at the finish. I’ve been training hard and now it pays off.
“Each race I’ve been getting stronger and after my last race the important thing I told myself was no one will remember that if you get a result here, so hopefully people can forget about that.
“The first part in the mud, I was not so good, but in the second part where it was steep I was stronger.”
Pidcock, who has signed for Team Ineos next season but will continue to race across a variety of disciplines including cyclocross and mountain bike, is regarded as one of the most exciting young talents in world cycling.
The Yorkshireman won the Under-23 or “Baby” Giro d’Italia this year before leading the British team at the world championships at Imola where he stayed with the leading group until the final 30 kilometres.
“I feel like I’m ready for the WorldTour but also excited to keep exploring disciplines with the support of this team,” he said at the time of his Ineos announcement in late September.
“I just want to keep racing, learning and growing as a bike rider, and having the opportunity to do that in this team is amazing.”
Pidcock will head to the next round of the World Cup in Namur next Sunday full of confidence.
“I’ve been training specifically for the climbing races,” he said. “I’ve trained at Beringen this week and will go next week as well.”
