"Some French guy was giving me the thumbs down, so I just gave him the middle finger" - Tom Pidcock recalls heated atmosphere during Paris Olympic MTB win

Tom Pidcock sensationally went back to back with a second gold medal win in the mountain bike at the Olympic Games in Paris last summer. Having been pushed all the way by home crowd favourite Victor Koretzky though, the Brit's victory was met by resounding boos as he crossed the line in celebration.

Even before Pidcock crossed the line a winner though, the Brit had been made to work heavily for his ultimate success. "To be honest, I didn’t enjoy the race at all. In the build up, I put too much stress on myself. You only put stress on yourself, you can ignore everything else, but I wanted to build myself up, because sometimes I can go to a race and be too relaxed," recalls the Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team star to Rouleur. "It was a long week. We were staying in a hotel, not in the Olympic village and a lot of the track riders were not there, the road guys were not there, so it was kind of a small group. You’re inside your own head a lot, trying to just stay focused but not too focused and not think about the race too much."

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In the race itself though, things started off well as Pidcock attacked clear early. Quickly though, things were thrown into difficulty again as a puncture threatened to ruin his ambitions. "When I punctured, I’d just attacked and the race was kind of strung out, I had a feeling and I almost knew that the puncture was going to happen. It was all just going too well. I came into the pits, my mechanic wasn’t ready and at that point, of course there’s no point in shouting at him or getting stressed, because he’s only going to panic even more, so I tried to stay as calm as possible," he remembers. "After setting off again, my legs felt crap for about two laps and then I started to come round, I was actually still passing people and then I could see the front and thought ‘I can still win’. At first, I thought ‘bronze, bronze is possible’."

Having got himself back to the front though, Pidcock was then involved in a thrilling battle for the ages with the aforementioned French star Victor Koretzky. "Was I able to enjoy it? No, because I was chasing Koretzky," he admits. "The thing is when I was coming, he kind of waited and I caught him just as we were going into the single track, so then I couldn’t get past him and he had another couple minutes of rest."

Pidcock in action during the Paris Olympic mountain bike

"I went past him as soon as I could, but he got the rest he needed and he’s pretty fast, he wins a lot of the short track races, so when he hit me on the last lap it didn’t surprise me. He wasn’t going to give up with the home crowd and this was his biggest goal of the year as well, but I knew that if I could stay in touch there was going to be an opportunity," Pidcock continues his recollection of the final lap. "As soon as an opportunity arose, I was going. Full commitment to try and get past. Obviously we were going faster than any other lap at that point and there’s a hole on the left, so normally we just went left because it’s straight, but he wanted a better run out of it I presume. But yeah I think I’m just quite lucky that he chose to go that side."

"There’s only a few times a year where you actually sprint and that was one of them," the now-double Olympic gold medallist adds. "Coming over that hill, and it’s actually quite a little hill, but on a mountain bike on gravel it just seems much bigger. Then I remember coming around the final corner and I start hearing everyone booing."

"I actually watched it back afterwards with my family and just as the TV camera cuts, some French guy was giving me the thumbs down, so I just gave him the middle finger. So I’m lucky that the TV camera cut at that point, I wasn’t really thinking to be honest," he concludes with a laugh.

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