TOM PIDCOCK: ‘I feel like I’ve been let off the lead. I just have that extra reserve of energy’

After an unhappy exit from Ineos the double Olympic champion Tom Pidcock is loving life at the Q36.5 team ‘In other teams you are living someone else’s targets. That doesn’t bring the best out of me’ 1 Mar 2025 - THE GUARDIAN / Sport Jeremy Whittle It’s July 2022 and Tom Pidcock is flying down the towering Col du Galibier at 100km an hour, pushing the boundaries of what is achievable on a road bike, his rear wheel sliding through each snaking vertiginous bend, leaving his peers far behind and French TV commentators aghast . A couple of hours later, he raises his arms at the top of Alpe d’huez, one of the Tour’s most feared climbs, taking an exhilarating stage win in his debut Tour de France . A new star is born . Few doubt that it is only a matter of time until he wears the yellow jersey. But things changed fast. Two years later, a disconsolate Pidcock described the Tour as “boring” and “crap”, and after a season of discontent was barely on speaking terms with his Ineos Grenadier...