"I don’t know why everyone’s talking about it so much" – Tom Pidcock unmoved by Kigali Worlds altitude and air-quality concerns

Tom Pidcock insists he is untroubled by the conditions awaiting riders in the men's elite road race at the 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, brushing aside talk of altitude struggles and poor air quality that have been a feature of the Worlds so far.

The Yorkshireman, who arrives off the back of a strong Vuelta a Espana where he sealed a first ever Grand Tour podium finish for both himself and his Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, admitted he has not logged a full block of post-Grand Tour training, but feels the course and the climbing on offer are well suited to him.

“I don’t really think it’s proper altitude,” Pidcock told Cycling Pro Net ahead of Sunday’s road race. “I don’t know why everyone’s talking about it so much. Maybe there’s a bit of air pollution, but I don’t think it’s too bad.”

Several riders earlier in the week voiced concerns about Rwanda’s testing conditions, with Bruno Armirail citing the “heat and altitude” as limiting factors in his time trial, while others suggested poor air quality in Kigali could complicate recovery. Pidcock, however, has played down those issues, emphasising that he feels unaffected by either element after his reconnaissance.

He and his British team only rode the short lap of the circuit, but his first impressions were clear. “The climbs are hard, that’s for sure. But the roads are wide and really fast, so I think it’ll take a while before the bunch starts to thin out. It’s quite a flowing circuit.”

With the men’s elite road race featuring repeated ascents and a punishing cobbled climb likened to the Kwaremont, Pidcock recognises that the parcours aligns with his strengths, but with one notable caveat. “With this amount of climbing, it suits me,” he said. “But that cobbled climb – it’s a perfect Tadej [Pogacar] climb.”

After a Vuelta in which he proved his durability across three weeks and confirmed his credentials against the sport’s grand tour heavyweights, Pidcock arrives in Kigali as an outsider who could thrive if the expected Evenepoel-Pogacar duel turns cagey. Whether the course plays into his hands will depend on how attritional the race becomes – and whether his dismissive take on altitude holds up once the Rainbow Jersey is on the line.