Paris 2024: Tom Pidcock focuses on main Olympics target - even if mountain bike course is 'bland'

The 24-year-old from Leeds is the undisputed world No 1 in mountain biking and hot favourite to add a second gold medal in Paris on Monday to the one he won in Tokyo three years ago.

But for one of the world’s best bike handlers, the lack of imagination put into the cross-country course at Elancourt Hill on the site of an old quarry, has left the Yorkshireman uninspired.

Pidcock labelled the course as “a bit bland”, because it is heavy on gravel sections and lacks the natural features of the courses that make up the World Cup schedule.

“It’s not the best course in the world but it’s the same for everyone,” he said. “They could have done better job of making it more of a mountain bike course.

“We love mountain biking for the reasons we love it, we enjoy it for the courses you get to ride and the places we get to go to.

“If you’ve just gravelled over a nice hillside it’s not really a mountain bike course.”

Pidcock has allayed fears that he might be struggling healthwise after withdrawing from the recent Tour de France in the second week of the race due to Covid.

“I’m fine,” Pidcock said on Friday. “I was six days positive…I was quite sick to be honest, and after the stages it was making it worse so it was a decision that it was better that I stopped.

“I’m in a good place. I’m happy with where I am, I’ve recovered well. I think I can be pretty content with how my recovery went.”

Pidcock has twin aims in Paris. After today’s mountain bike test, he switches his attention to the road race which takes place on Saturday.

That is a gruelling 273km examination with only 90 or so riders, which means only a few are expected to finish.

Tour de France and Giro d’Italia winner Tadej Pogacar recently withdrew from the Olympic road race citing fatigue, and while Pidcock didn’t necessarily see the Slovenian as a potential winner against the likes of Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Remco Evenepoel, how does Yorkshire’s natural born winner view the challenge?

“My main goal is the mountain bike race. Road race I will think about on Tuesday,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

“But I would be happy with a medal in the road race.

“Would it affect how I race it? It could do, yes, the race could be quite open given the teams are pretty small and the field is pretty small, it could be quite a different dynamic, quite unknown. You might have to race a little bit more open–minded, a bit more aggressively than perhaps we would normally with smaller teams to control the race.

“If you play smart, you could get a free ride to the finish in certain situations and that’s going to be important to have a strong team that we can have near the front.”