Pidcock's coach believes Cyclocross season is perfect preparation for the Classics: "Everyone needs to work hard in the winter and this is a different way to make your condition better"

Kurt Bogaerts, the coach of cycling phenomenon Tom Pidcock, believes spending the winter riding the Cyclocross season will stand the INEOS Grenadiers rider in good stead for the Classics.

Pidcock entered the Classics of 2022 with high hopes of taking a victory. Unfortunately for the Brit the best he could manage was 3rd in Dwars door Vlaanderen, 5th in De Brabantse Pijl and 11th in the Amstel Gold Race. Now with a year's more experience in his legs, Bogaerts believes Pidcock is set to take the Classics by storm. “I think this year, the Classics are more important,” Bogaerts told Cyclingnews. “We try to make sure that he goes fresh and with the right shape into the Classics."

According to Bogaerts, one of the factors behind Pidcock failing to pick up a victory during last year's Classics was the fact he was so heavily marked by other riders. “I think this year things didn’t work out so well. But he saw that he had a strong team and could fall back on a strong team. He knows when people look at him and mark him that there are other people in the team that can take advantage of it. So in the end, we tried to win with the team." he said. "I think it’s a natural progression on a really good first year, where you then go into the second year and you’re a bit more marked. That’s normal.”

With Pidcock's priority seemingly being the Classics and in turn the road, the possibility of the Brit defending his Cyclocross World Championship title seems unlikely. Whilst Bogaerts would refuse to rule it out, his answer may allude to this being the case. “I think it’s very unlikely,” he pondered. "The worlds are very late and that then comes closer to the road season where we are planning to do a training block leading into it. So there’s not much time if you want to do a race before Opening Weekend and everything. We didn’t make a decision yet, but let’s see.”