Tom Pidcock, the Olympic champion, secured a memorable gold medal at the World Championships in the Tweed Valley, dominating the final laps of the cross country Olympic race. Pidcock, who earlier in the week won bronze in Cross Country short track, held off a late chase from New Zealand’s Sam Gaze, after moving into the lead at the start of the penultimate lap. Gaze finished 19 seconds behind Pidcock with Switzerland’s Nino Schurter a further 15 seconds back in third.
“It’s a big relief,” Pidcock said. “It’s been a long week building up to this. In front of the home crowd, it’s pretty special. The last few laps were so stressful. My gears were not working well. They were jumping, up every climb. Gaze was coming and I thought it could all go in the bin at any moment.”
The race started dramatically when Mathieu van der Poel came to grief on a right-hand downhill corner just before the end of the start loop, tumbling on to the same right side he had injured when crashing during his road race win in Glasgow, a week ago. The Dutchman abandoned immediately, thus forgoing his hopes of becoming the first male rider to hold world cyclo-cross, road and mountain bike titles in one season.
But the sense that the mountain biking community had been forced into kow-towing to the likes of Pidcock, Van der Poel and Peter Sagan persisted, after more than 20 elite men and women racers, including Schurter, had signed a letter protesting against what they saw as preferential treatment.
“We are really not happy (with) how the UCI is treating our discipline by changing rules regarding start position one day before the race,” the letter said. “The point is not whether the rule being applied is fair, unfair or appropriate. What matters is the manner and timing in which the UCI applied and enforced this rule. And the consequences that follow for individual riders and teams with quota positions for the Olympic Games.”
In a convoluted interpretation of the UCI’s rules, the Tour de France riders were effectively bumped up the start grid for the men’s Cross Country Olympic race. The UCI sports director, Peter Van Den Abeele said: “I wouldn’t call it favouritism. It’s about the added value of the sport. A mountain bike race with Pidcock or Van der Poel is of a different calibre than a mountain bike race without those two.”
Pidcock said: “It’s pretty outrageous. This week they changed the rule. You can’t do that.”
In the women’s race, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot took her fifth world title, as Britain’s Evie Richards missed out on the medals, finishing sixth. “I just tried to hang on for dear life,” Richards said. “I pushed as hard as I could and couldn’t stay with that medal – but I gave it all that I could. I was still tired from the short track.”
In the men’s under-23 road race, the folly of taking the world’s best young riders through so many tight corners and over pedestrianised surfaces in the Glasgow rain, was laid bare, as 26 crashes turned the race into something of a farce. With numerous riders crashing, the peloton was soon fractured and diminished as a group of eight, including Britain’s Jack Rootkin-Gray, raced into the final kilometres.
Rootkin-Gray fought hard to stay in contention, but finished fourth in the sprint for the silver and bronze medal positions, behind race winner Axel Laurance of France. “It was brutal,” Rootkin-Gray said. “I just didn’t have quite enough to do what I’d hoped to do.”
In the Para cycling disciplines, Will Bjergfelt took gold in the MC5 road race, as did Fin Graham in the MC3 road race. Archie Atkinson claimed a bronze in the MC4 road race, Ben Watson took bronze in the MC3 road race while Sophie Unwin and Jenny Holl also won bronze medals in the women’s B road race.
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Tom Pidcock overcomes mechanical problems and controversy to claim gold - The Guardian
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