Tom Pidcock is quietly assured and dreaming massive forward of the Tour de France Grand Départ in Florence.
The British star is coming into the race primarily concentrating on stage wins, however says he’s dreaming of pulling on the chief’s yellow jersey in the course of the opening weekend.
Talking on the Ineos Grenadiers group lodge on Wednesday, Pidcock stated that he had accepted he would wish to place his foremost basic classification goals on maintain for one more 12 months. Nonetheless, he made clear that he could be concentrating on the general lead within the opening levels.
“For certain it is attainable,” Pidcock stated when requested if he backed himself to take the yellow jersey in Italy. “It is type of what I have been dreaming of this final month once I’ve been coaching exhausting. There’s quite a lot of guys who will already be having the identical dream so it isn’t going to be straightforward, however we’ll give it an excellent shot.
“I need to race aggressively and attempt to win some levels,” he added. “Initially I do not need to lose time within the GC for the sake of it, but when I would like to try this in an effort to obtain these targets of profitable levels then I’ll later within the race.”
Pidcock faces a busy summer season of competitors through which he may also defend the Olympic cross-country mountain gold medal that he received on the on the Video games in Tokyo. The Yorkshireman defined that his ambitions in Paris meant that inevitably he wanted to recalibrate his targets on the Tour this day out.
“I believe subsequent 12 months is the primary 12 months that anybody will see what I am truly able to on GC right here,” he stated.
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Ineos Grenadiers go into this 12 months’s version with Carlos Rodríguez heading up the group, the current winner of the Tour de Romandie, and their foremost protected GC rider. The group additionally one other card to play within the struggle for the rostrum within the type of Egan Bernal, a former Tour winner.
“We need to come out of this race with success and nevertheless it comes goes to learn us all,” Pidcock stated. “If we’re within the final week and preventing for the rostrum with certainly one of these guys then we’ll go all in for that.
“I believe if I used to be going for GC and so have been Carlos and Egan, it is by no means straightforward for everyone as a result of we’re all bold,” he added.
(Picture credit score: Getty Photographs)
Pidcock’s function will probably be “a bit extra free” on the race, as he tries to go for stage wins.
“If we get a stage win, it should take the stress off a bit of,” he stated. “We need to race aggressively. How the group raced within the Giro was good to see. That is what we need to do right here as nicely.”
A lot has been stated earlier than the race relating to the chance of Tadej Pogačar igniting the race from the off on Saturday on the powerful mountainous stage. The Slovenian is concentrating on the Giro-Tour double, a feat not achieved since Marco Pantani received each races in 1998.
Pogačar attacked on stage one on the Giro in Might on the hilly stage round Turin. However Ineos’s Jhonatan Narváez was in a position to comply with the rampaging UAE Emirates rider and take the primary pink jersey of the race.
Requested by Biking Weekly if he may pull off an analogous feat on the Tour, Pidcock stated: “Perhaps, we are going to see. In fact we all know who will probably be good and who will make a distinction already. I believe UAE have been out on the course at the moment.
“I believe they’re going to need to make a distinction already at the beginning of this race understanding that Jonas Vingegaard is a little bit of an unknown. I believe they are going to need to put their playing cards on the desk early in case he comes good within the ultimate week.”
