“I’ve improved a lot... More than 50%” – Tom Pidcock fires Liège warning after standout Tour of the Alps return

Tom Pidcock’s 2026 Tour of the Alps campaign has shifted expectations around his spring in a matter of days, with the British rider emerging from an uncertain return to racing to become one of the standout performers of the week.

Racing for Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, Pidcock arrived at the race following his frightening crash at the Volta a Catalunya, where he fell down a ravine at high speed and was forced into a short but disruptive recovery period. With little clarity over his condition beforehand, the Tour of the Alps was initially viewed as a tentative return. By the end of the week, it had become something very different.

Pidcock’s trajectory across the five stages told the story. After easing his way back into the peloton, he quickly showed signs of progress, building confidence day by day before taking a stage victory and following it up with a second-place finish on his immediate return to racing.

That upward trend continued into the final stage, where he was again aggressive, making the breakaway and shaping the early part of the race before the general classification battle took over on the final climb. “I felt pretty good. Every day I’m getting better,” Pidcock said in conversation with Cycling Pro Net.

The most striking element of Pidcock’s assessment was the scale of his improvement across the week. “A lot. More than 50 percent,” he said when asked how much he had progressed during the race. “I would have been dropped on the first climb today at the start of the week.”

That comparison underlines just how quickly his condition has evolved, particularly given the circumstances of his return.

While he ultimately did not have the legs to remain with the front group in the decisive phase of the final stage, his ability to animate the race earlier in the day and remain competitive deep into the week marked a significant step forward.

Pidcock’s presence in the breakaway on Stage 5 also reflected a clear approach to his comeback: race aggressively rather than conservatively. “The break was not too hard to get into,” he said. “I think Red Bull must sponsor the Austrian team or something.”

That move placed him among the key protagonists in the early phase of the stage, alongside riders such as Lennart Jasch and Sam Oomen, before the race came back together on the decisive climb. “Obviously I didn’t have the legs to stay at the front in the final, but I can be happy,” he added.

Attention now turns to Liège-Bastogne-Liège, where Pidcock will line up with a very different level of confidence compared to just a few days ago. “Yeah, a lot more confidence,” he said. “It’s going to be very different. It’ll be a lot harder than this, I think. But we’ll see. Let’s go and have a race.”

Given the level he has reached across the week, and the speed of his progression, that confidence is not without foundation.

What began as a cautious return has quickly turned into a statement of intent, and with Liège-Bastogne-Liège looming, Pidcock now looks far more competitive than many would have expected just days earlier.