British three-time Olympic champion sees Tom Pidcock as "the best rider in the world" thanks to his uniquely versatile profile
Cycling
Ed Clancy is Yorkshire's most decorated Olympian to this day with three Olympic gold medals from track. In addition he also won six World championship titles and five European titles. However he is well aware that he may be surpassed by the 25-year-old Tom Pidcock, who's already won the Olympic MTB twice and also aspires to succeed on road in the future. Finally, The rumoured inclusion of cyclocross at the Winter Olympic Games could only improve his chances of another gold medal.
Clancy doesn't hide the fact that he's a huge fan of Pidcock, putting him even above the likes of Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar: "Tom is the best rider in the world," he claimed at Yahoo. "Maybe I'm biased as a Yorkshireman, but his bike handling skills, tactical awareness, how he can climb, sprint, he can do Classics, Grand Tours, I think he's the best around."
With victories in Tokyo 2021 and now in Paris, the young all-rounder is already only one triumph shy of Clancy's record. Albeit he's still got some work to do in terms of rainbow jerseys. "Tom is already way more successful than I was. He’s got two Olympic golds and he’s still in his mid-20s. If he wants to pursue that, he could stack up Olympic medals for the next two or three Games."
Clancy believes there's still a lot to achieve on the road. In his opinion, Pidcock's future lies in the one-day races, albeit he definitely doesn't want to lower his chances at a Grand Tour. And at the end of the day, he can always return to Mountain bike. "I don’t think anyone truly knows what his future is. He clearly has a gift for one-day classics so maybe he wants to lean into that. But it would be a shame if he ever left mountain biking behind as he’s so good at it. I like when people do multi-disciplines, I really do – even if he does replace me as Yorkshire’s greatest Olympian."
Read also
Not sure which planet Clancy's from. Pidcock and Pogi are same age. Road Results? Pog vs Pid GT GC wins: 4-0 GT stage wins: 26-1 Monuments: 6-0 Week-long stage race GC: 12-0 Other WT Classics: 5-3 There's no race, regardless of terrain, if both actually targeted them where Pogi wouldn't blitz past Pidcock. Pidcock has a few good MTB results, but I doubt if Pogi was in any of them. Sorry, maybe I'm biased, but Clancy is definitely too.
“Only” four GT wins for Pogi plus 3 podiums. Not that this correction changes the conclusion 😀😀
Don't compare it with cycling. Mountain bike has no good riders to put him in difficulty. Please don't put him in the class of Pogi nor MVdP. He is very far of them. Even Carlos Rodriguez not on his level.
The fact that Tom seems a level above doesn’t mean MTB “has no good riders”. We wouldn’t say “road racing has no good climbers” just because no one puts Pogi in difficulty.
Absolutely! Only it makes for better discussion if it’s grounded in reality.
Taking into account MB, CC and road he probably is close to the best but road is by far his weakest area. He is good on the road but their is a gap between him and MVP. Pog and Jonas.. If Piddcock puts his focus on the road for 2025 he could move a lot closer to the top. He is only just 25 after all.
Go on why he is the most versatile rider . Go on hater tell me why ??
There's no talk about multi discipline versatility at all. Clancy said "the best" and named road racing qualities. His bike handling is amazing but he's far from the best because of his lacking everywhere else
Just in
Play for FREE! Fantasy Tour of Flanders
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Popular news
Latest comments
- Whatever happens tomorrow... it'll be a hell of a raceslappers6605-04-2025
- Exactly Tadej, the cancer of modern society. Full of good-for-nothing people who gain visibility and importance on social media mocking, humiliating (and worse things) to earn money. But it's the follower's fault, no followers, no "influencers".
maria2024202405-04-2025 - Great commentCaralladas05-04-2025
- i’m such a sucker for those group-hug, happy ending moments between competitors, largely because it’s so WASN’T that way in my younger, stronger days. (on that note, i have this hope that somewhere down the road, maybe fifteen or twenty years, a middle aged wout and mathieu will go for a pleasure ride together in flanders, and reminisce about the days when they were the young, strong monsters that stalked the cobbles.)OCexile05-04-2025
- Just like Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Ronde van Vlaanderen was/is NOT on MAX. Get your facts straight.Ben04-04-2025
- You might bounce more for the same power, but not the same speed. Sending 20 kgs over a jump at 20 kph will fly just as far as 10 kgs at the same speed. Again, Galileo demonstrated this.acem8204-04-2025
- So, you're saying that doing a bunch of small hops on a bike is easier if you're heavier? Why do people buy lighter bikes, then? Why do they generally feel better and faster? An appeal to "rhythm" is not helpful either, as the right "rhythm" might be on the lighter or heavier side of things, and as it varies, it's likely a wash either way. Then we are left with the physics truth that it takes less power to lift lighter things than heavier things.acem8204-04-2025
- No, weight doesn't affect the ability to go into the wind at all. It's all CdA vs power at that point. For example, it's "obvious" that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter one. But, absent wind resistance, it's not true (Galileo demonstrated this). An appeal to "obviousness" doesn't matter when the physics is clear. And yes, you have to be able to hold everything else constant, or you can't determine anything! So, imagine a 300 watt rider at 80 kgs with a CdA of 2.0, then imagine that same rider at 70 kgs with a CdA of 2.0. (Assume ideal tire pressure for both, same bike.) Which one can ride over a bumpy road fastest? The lighter one, as he doesn't have to lift as much. That's also why when they test bikes on 5 star cobbled sectors, the MTB goes faster than even a cobble-build road bike. Even though rolling resistance is higher on a flat road, and the CdA is junk, it smooths out the cobbles, allowing the person to not lift as much as they otherwise would.acem8204-04-2025
- I disagree. If you have lower weight, you will bounce more at the same speed, meaning that you will spend more time in the air and shorter time on the ground, as a consequence, when you are on the ground you have to produce more force for the same speedvappaxbipmv04-04-2025
- That’s not quite true, even steep climbs and sudden gradient changes can be considered as remaining tangential to the wheel whereas the occasional dip between cobbles a wheel drops into cannot, as such riding over cobbles can become like a permanent surmounting of small obstacles that hit back into your wheel slowing you drastically if you don’t have the right rhythm to “fly” on the mounds, here again the greater the momentum the less these obstacles reduce your speed. But, it is but one factor, you cannot decide on this alone. Like with natural surface ripple formation on desert tracks used by vehicles, there is an optimal speed range to efficiently pass over such surfaces, too fast or slow and your car gets shaken to pieces from the “harmonics” in the vibrations caused. Pretty sure the same applies to riding on cobbles.Mistermaumau04-04-2025