Arkansas
Tom Pidcock made becoming the first Briton to win the men’s elite UCI cyclo-cross world title look easy as he broke away for a comfortable victory in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The 22-year-old from Yorkshire delivered on his status as race favourite to add to the junior and under-23 world titles he had previously won in this discipline, and adds another rainbow jersey to his collection a little over six months after taking Olympic gold on his mountain bike.
With Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel, winners of the last seven titles between them, not competing, Pidcock’s challenge was to counter the superior strength in numbers of the Belgian squad, and he did so by breaking clear after five of the nine laps around the dusty course.
His lead quickly grew as the riders behind debated who might chase, and Pidcock had time to high five the crowd down the finish line before getting into a superman pose on his bike, his margin of victory 30 seconds over Dutchman Lars van der Haar, who outsprinted Belgium’s Eli Iserbyt for silver.
