ANALYSIS: How difficult will Tom Pidcock's Giro d'Italia debut be?
Cycling
With today’s announcement that Tom Pidcock’s Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team has received a wildcard invitation to the 2025 Giro d’Italia, the question now is how far a ProTeam can go in a race so often dominated by WorldTour heavyweights.
For Q36.5, it marks a significant milestone. Since the team’s relaunch under Doug Ryder in 2023, they have made steady progress, and in 2025 have already enjoyed their most successful start to a season. Now, with the chance to compete in their first Grand Tour, the team (and Pidcock in particular) will be under the spotlight.
But if recent history is any guide, success for wildcard teams at the Giro has become increasingly rare.
At the 2024 Giro d’Italia, four ProTeams were granted wildcard entries: Israel–Premier Tech, Polti–Kometa, Tudor Pro Cycling Team, and VF Group–Bardiani–CSF–Faizanè. Despite active racing from all four, none of them managed to win a stage.
While a few riders featured in breakaways and animated the race, the victories all went elsewhere. And we’re certain that Tadej Pogacar played a role in that.
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Making his Giro debut, the Slovenian star won six stages and took control of the general classification, making it difficult for any team (ProTeam or otherwise) to seriously challenge for the spoils.
Greedy!
There have been several times in recent years however when a ProTeam came out on top at the Giro. For example in 2019, when Italian rider Damiano Cima secured a dramatic victory on Stage 18 while riding for Nippo–Vini Fantini–Faizanè.
Cima had been part of the breakaway and held off a fast-charging peloton by mere metres to take the win in Santa Maria di Sala. It was not only a huge moment for Cima, but a significant result for his team, a rare moment in recent years where a wildcard squad stood atop a Giro podium.
It was the kind of day every ProTeam dreams of at a Grand Tour, a true underdog story. And there are several others in recent history too.
None other than Mathieu van der Poel took the opening stage of the Giro in 2022, when his team was yet to become the superpower that Alpecin-Deceuninck are today. That same year, Stefano Oldani took a stage win for the same team (then called Alpecin-Fenix), in what was a superb race for the squad.
As recently as 2023, Davide Bais took a stage win for Eolo-Kometa. So these results show that whilst Pidcock has a difficult task ahead of him, it is not impossible for him to have success in Italy this May.
It is however true that the growing financial and logistical gap between ProTeams and their WorldTour counterparts continues to make life harder for smaller squads, especially over a demanding three-week race like the Giro.
That’s the backdrop against which Q36.5 will enter the 2025 edition. But this time, the equation might be a little different. With Tom Pidcock leading the team, Q36.5 are not arriving in Italy to merely make up the numbers. Pidcock has won Olympic titles, classics and a stage at the Tour de France and has the ability to animate hilly stages, launch explosive attacks, and win from breakaways. His supreme ability makes him a genuine threat, and a wildcard team with a proven winner always has the potential to shake up the race.
Even so, expectations should remain grounded. Recent history suggests that just competing at the front, placing riders in breakaways, and maintaining visibility throughout the race would represent a solid debut.
The 2025 Giro d’Italia offers Q36.5 a golden opportunity. And while ProTeam stage wins are rare, they’re not impossible. With momentum behind them, the sheer talent of Pidcock, and a chance to make history, they’ll be one of the most intriguing teams to watch when the peloton rolls out in May.
We can certainly expect action from Mr Pidcock and his new team next month.
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- Watch out Urska, I think he’s taken a liking to MVDP ;-)Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- Totally!Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- It will be interesting to see how he goes on the cobbles, so far he's looking very strong.awp04-04-2025
- if there is an actual weakness in wout even when completely healthy, it’s that he’s in his head too often. this has been pointed out many times by much more acute observers of cycling than ME, certainly. it may be that he’s been like this since he was a little kid. we are who we are. or that he was shaped by having faced van der poel SOOO many times. mvdp has zero second thoughts. he wastes no time at all on doubt. that has, in the past, led him to do some pretty insane things and make mistakes that wout would never have committed. but it also makes him a killer. you can see wout’s split seconds of doubt and hesitation everywhere in their head to head battles. those hesitations spill over into other races at times like dwars, when doubt creeps in. i believe that currently he is still coming back from physical problems due to injuries, but even when he’s full strength the mental game is an area of potential concern, AND potential improvement.OCexile03-04-2025
- Not only the public, just about every analyst and commentator had been piling it on. Under the circumstances I’d even say he’s showing real character. Not sure likeable Tadej would manage as well during a longer rough patch.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- Took a while but we finally have a more nuanced analysis.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- If I remember right, it was those same hungry journalists selling us a different story less than a year ago about the bleak future of Dutch (men’s) cycling with no possible successor for MVDP ;-)Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- Good, hopefully Jonas goes also so we get a nice duelvappaxbipmv03-04-2025
- right? i think it’s hungry journalists that fuel this, and i understand the jam they can be in trying to create stories, but you’d hate to think ANYONE is failing to appreciate how RARE someone like van der poel is (or how LUCKY we are to have both mvdp and pog racing at the same time). a little perspective is a good thing…OCexile03-04-2025