Cycling star Tom Pidcock is our sports hero

Readers voted over the past 1o days for their favourite sporting performer with the 21-year-old declared the winner when the vote closed yesterday.

Pidcock won out against a number of big names from the Yorkshire sporting world, including rugby league’s Kevin Sinfield, Rob Burrow and Paul McShane, Yorkshire CCC’s Dawid Malan and jockey Brian Hughes.

The other names to make the shortlist were boxer Terri Harper, Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa, wheelchair sprinter Hannah Cockroft and Harrogate Town manager Simon Weaver.

Pidcock has had an outstanding year, finishing first in the under-23 Giro, when he also won two stages and being top British finisher in the elite world championship road race. Runner-up at the cyclo-cross world championships in February, he claimed his first senior victory in that branch of the sport when he won the Superprestige Gavere.

He will join road racing’s elite World Tour next year, with Ineos Grenadiers, but continue to ride cyclo-cross and mountain bike to develop his skills. British cycling’s next big thing.