Pidcock doubles up at Crans-Montana

Tom Pidcock put in a commanding ride to claim the win and take a clean sweep of the weekend at the Crans-Montana MTB World Cup.

The Brit claimed a magnificent seventh career XCO World Cup victory and put in one of the finest MTB performances of his career – winning by over a minute.

Tricky muddy conditions greeted the riders across seven laps of the Swiss course. Pidcock used his skill to move to the front on lap one, despite losing places initially off the start.

He went away with German Julian Schelb, before a small crash in the tech zone briefly halted his progress. Tom quickly wrestled back the lead early on lap two, and by lap three he set about driving home his advantage over Mathias Fluckiger.

In the end he was able to manage his efforts, winning by 1:10 over Fluckiger, with Luca Braidot rounding out the podium places a further 55 seconds back.

Reaction

- Tom Pidcock

“The start was a bit better, but it was just really tricky in the first few laps, just to find my own rhythm. We were just kind of getting in each other’s way and making each other make mistakes – it was a bit frustrating really. Then I got my gap and my own rhythm. Then I tried to relax and then I made two or three mistakes on that lap when I crashed.

“It’s really difficult to really go super deep here. Of course you can go deep here and lose concentration – but you have to save yourself for the tricky uphills and use your whole body. It’s not like a road climb where you can just whack it up. In the mud you have to concentrate and balance – so it’s more of a sustained thing really. It was good fun.”