Nothing less than miracles expected from Tom Pidcock at daring Q36.5 Pro Cycling: "We see Pidcock in the Big 5 of Cycling"
Cycling
Q36.5 Pro Cycling locked in for the start of the 2025 season. The star signing of Tom Pidcock elevated the whole team to a new level. So much that in fact they equalized their victory counter from 2024 already by mid-February. Much of that thanks to Pidcock who won two stages and GC at AlUla Tour on his debut for the Swiss ProTeam.
"Signing Tom Pidcock was a game changer for the team," confirms sports director Alexandre Sans Vega in an interview for WielerFlits. "For starters, in every race where Tom starts, you now have a 100% guarantee that he can win. I deliberately don’t say 60 or 80 percent, but a hundred, because Tom is so versatile. That immediately changes the mindset of the entire team. It may be a cliché, but I am convinced that he can take almost anyone to a higher level."
Vega, as a former DS at Dimension Data where he met with the likes of Mark Cavendish, is not fully unfamiliar with the magic one strong rider can do with the whole team: "Some riders find it easier to give one hundred percent for one rider. Someone like that changes the whole dynamic."
"You have something like Big Tech, don't you? Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft. Well, in my opinion, that also exists in cycling. The Big 5 are Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel and Tom. That is the level at which we see him."
Now, to put Pidcock in the top-5, ahead of the likes of Remco Evenepoel, may be a bit long stretch. The one thing he needs to figure out is what is it that he wants to do. In the past he has proven himself as a strong rider at both hilly and cobbled classics as well as in the high mountains. And then there is his love for mountain bikes...
"We are going to use him initially in the hilly classics, where he has the greatest chance of winning. But in the long term, Tom also wants to ride a good classification in a Grand Tour," Vega knows well.
Obviously the management of Q36.5 Pro Cycling is in no position to challenge Pidcock's Tour de France dream and so if that's what he desires, the team will try to comply with his request. "And if he wants to try that himself, it is up to us to help him with that and make investments to make that goal a success in the long term."
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- I believe Mathieu rather gets beaten by a stronger rider than one who raced smarter. That is why he wanted to team up with Pogacar to drop the JV riders and Mads who were not helping in the chase of the first group since they had a teammate up front.JoostMehrtens08-04-2025
- Just shows that LA is not truly repentant. JUSTICE was served. No winner, no second , no third on the podium for those 7 years. No real winners could be determined, ever. Lance got to keep most of his money , he really should can it . He is toxic to cycling.dave08-04-2025
- Tricky one as while I agree Pogi and UAE are simply faster over a long distance which means Visma and MVP need to be as smart with energy use as can, it's also been proven in the past that one way for Pogi to be beaten is relentless attacks, to put him into the red. However that does require a rider to as good as sacrifice themselves for that one move which makes riskHoopoeChai07-04-2025
- Even if not technically against the rules, this is just bad etiquette and frankly I hope the rest of pelaton remembers Arkea don't care about etiquette or honoring tradition which means they shouldn't benifit from it.HoopoeChai07-04-2025
- The other issue is that Mad Petersen and Wout would have let MVDP do most of the work, as he kept showing he was stronger. MVDP did the strategy with the highest likelihood of victory, he just wasn't strong enough.acem8207-04-2025
- Crash did not help, Out of position for first attack did not help, illness did not help, pacing was not the best either. MVDP has never raced to his limits against other riders but this is his characteristics when he cracks, he cracks big time just like his first elite men WC RR. Against Pogi he needed to be optimized and he is notabstractengineer07-04-2025
- Yes, I completely agree! Before going to a doctor, I give my immune system time to react. If a reasonable amount of time passes and I'm not cured, then I go to the doctor. Fortunately, I haven't needed a doctor in years!
maria2024202407-04-2025 - A lot of medicine does nothing more than speed up recovery time 4-5 days instead of 7-8, 10-12 instead of 2 weeks. It is questionable if it’s really a good thing for healthy people to rely on it as it also makes your immune system lazy and less responsive next time round, making you more and more reliant on medication (surprise, surprise). A bit like glasses, the less you succumb to adapting their strength, the slower the deterioration. Unfortunately many bacterial infections are not so easy to fight without help, your body should manage in the end but it can take really long, I once had strong fever for 3 months trying to fight an infection without reducing work or lifestyle (the antibiotics at the beginning didn’t help).Mistermaumau07-04-2025
- In this case, maybe is my fault (my ignorance). Fortunately, my family hasn't been sick for many, many years, so I can't say if doctors in Italy are still old-fashioned. When we catch a cold (very mild, nothing that requires medical attention), we recover completely in about a week. This may have reinforced my belief in the 7-day cure. Thank you so much, MisterMmaria2024202407-04-2025
- I appreciate the No Excuses thing...bobo07-04-2025