Tom Pidcock has said while he now wants to focus more on his road racing, after winning the MTB XC title again after an epic race at the Olympic Games, issues within his Ineos Grenadiers team were distracting him from performing at his best.
The British rider, who performed well below par at Tour of Britain before crashing, has been sidelined due to concussion following that spill. And that means his schedule for the final weeks of the season, including the World Road Championships, is unclear.
However, he will definitely miss Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal in Canada this weekend. As well as his latest set-back, he has also spoken of issues within Ineos Grenadiers, coming not long after saying he was "frazzled" by speculation about his possible departure from the team.
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His team mate, Geraint Thomas, also recently said since there had been management changes at the team he felt direction had been lost. Specifically, he believed the team needed a clearer plan, with a decisive voice deciding on strategy and then everyone following that path.
“It’s like a coalition government," Thomas said of the team decision-making now. "You need a majority. Even if you didn’t agree with stuff (under Dave Brailsford) at least there was a clear ‘boom, boom, boom’ – that’s it, move on – rather than this grey area.”
And more recently when performance engineer Dan Bigham left Ineos Grenadiers for Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, he spoke about he felt the British team was not achieving its potential.
“How I want to do performance is not particularly aligned with how Ineos wanted to go about it. I wanted more autonomy, more ability to action my ideas. And I wasn’t really getting that at Ineos" he said.
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“I feel that a lot of performance we’re leaving on the table and that frustrates me because it’s clear as day we should be doing things a lot better. Let’s be honest, Ineos are not where they want to be, not where they need to be and the gap is not small.”
For his part, Pidcock spoke to Het Laatste Nieuws at the Tour of Britain, before his stage 6 crash, and said the dynamic within his team was distracting him from reaching peak performance in races.
"Yes, it's true that there are a number of things within the team that I have to deal with at the moment. And to be honest, they don't help me to perform optimally," he said.
"I have to think about a lot more than just performance-related things at the moment. And that means that the focus on the things that are really important, namely racing, is not ideal."
Asked if the problems were about the structure of the team he replied: "I think I'd better not say anything more about this." And when he was put to him he might leave, he said: "I have a contract until the end of 2027. I can't say more."
But Pidcock was also clear he was focused on road racing going forward, even if getting into the small, very elite, group that wins most of the big races is a significant challenge.
"After the Olympic Games I told my girlfriend that from now on I really want to focus on the road. That is where I really want to perform. And I am not just talking about the rest of this season, but certainly also next year.
“As in so many seasons (this year), there are now also positive and negative aspects. It is just so damn hard to win. There are only a small number of riders who win the majority of the races and I want to be one of them. That is not the case now and that has to change.”
