News: Tom Pidcock Wins Junior Paris Roubaix

Mega is how World Junior Cyclo-Cross Champion Tom Pidcock describes his long solo victory in the Junior Paris – Roubaix

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News: Tom Pidcock Wins Junior Paris Roubaix

On Sunday, prior to the Men’s Paris-Roubaix finishing, the Junior Men’s version saw Tom Pidcock solo to an astonishing victory after a long lone effort.

Tom had already made a lot of people sit up and take notice of his achievements in cyclo-cross but this will just add to the interest from World Tour teams looking for the next star rider. He joins other British riders Geraint Thomas and Andy Fenn as winners of the race.

The British rider won the Junior Paris-Roubaix, the second round in the 2017 Junior UCI Nations Cup after a team effort by the GB lads. The race was over 111 km, with 28.9 km on cobblestones divided into 16 sectors from Saint-Amand-les-Eaux to the velodrome in Roubaix.

Speaking to Tom as he travelled to a hotel where he will stay for the week ahead of a stage race next weekend, he explained how it felt quite surreal to win the race which was a goal but the win wasn’t expected of him.

Riding a very slippery (polished LoL) Ridley bike set up by Paul Milnes with Continental 28mm ‘roubaix’ Pro Ltd tubulars and special pave Speedplay pedals, he says the bike felt great and that he had an incident free race where he wasn’t outside the top five in his group all race.

With around 40k to go, a break went up the road and in that was Tom’s teammate Jake Stewart. “We’d been working as a team to get in the moves and as the break went of sight, I thought that was the winning break as it had a lot of teams in it. I didn’t expect anyone was going to pull it back in the group.”

“I knew I had to get across if I wanted to win so on sector seven, I attacked and bridged across the gap of 45 seconds by sector five and managed to get on the back of the leaders just after the sector started. Then someone in the group attacked and Jake rode for me on the sector so I could stay in contact with the group. Then going into the La Carrefour (one of the hardest cobblestone stretches), I gave it everything I had and that was it”.

It was though a long solo effort and his rivals were not giving him room to play with especially with the wind making it even harder. “It was long way, a lot further than I thought it was” he said before adding that unlike the cross worlds where the win was ‘expected of him’, this was a goal but not expected and so it was pretty mega to claim the victory.

Asked about the team effort, Tom explained that he went into the race as team captain but added that for juniors, still looking to prove themselves and feeling strong, working for someone else is hard but work they did and he dedicated the win to the team. He then added the communication between everyone was good in the race and they trusted each other to do their jobs in a race where team work can be difficult because of the parcour.

Tom then confirmed he takes a lot of confidence from the win that in the future he can race at the highest level on the road and in cyclo-cross. “Training since the Worlds hasn’t gone perfectly so to be able to do that was great. I came to terms with my win at the Worlds quite quickly but I can’t really believe I have won this!”

His road season continues in Belgium this week and Tom says there are a lot more important races during the season including the World Championships in Bergen, Norway. Thank you to Tom for his time and good luck for the forthcoming races.

Result
1. Tom Pidcock
2. Daan Hoole 0:04
3. Mathias Larsen

12. Joe Nally
14. Alfred Wright
25. Jake Stewart
31. Jim Brown

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