"Third place is not bad" - Tom Pidcock impresses in 'drag race' with Mads Pedersen on stage 5 at the 2025 Giro d'Italia

Stage 5 was wide open for all types of riders, something proven by the podium of the day, as Mads Pedersen held on to a narrow win ahead of Edoardo Zambanini and Tom Pidcock.

For Pidcock, whilst a first ever Giro d'Italia stage win didn't emerge, the Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team leader cut a positive figure in his post-stage interview with Eurosport afterwards. "It's always hard, a final. I mean, now racing is so hard and then there’s still, yeah, 100 guys left in the bunch. You have to keep focused. I timed my sprint well and I went into Mads’s wheel," began his reflections. Once in Pedersen's wheel though, Pidcock couldn't manage to power out of the slipstream and into the lead.

"I had to kind of slow down in his wheel, and then to come round… yeah, once you're just in a drag race, it's not happening," Pidcock continues. "So maybe I should have gone straight past, but it’s a long way. Third place is not bad. It wasn’t a perfect finish for me — it's pretty explosive — so that was not bad."

Happy with 3rd, Pidcock admits it was probably the best he could have hoped for in the end. "No, not really," he responds when asked if he could do anything differently. "I mean, unless you have a guy like Mathias Vacek on the front, then… yeah, there’s not much you can do. You just have to go with the race."

"The final climb came a bit fast and I was a bit far back. So at that point I just wanted to follow. I was thinking about maybe trying something over the top—that's where you can probably make a difference. But on the climb, it’s too short really," Pidcock concludes. "Everyone’s going the same pace, really."