The wait for Tom Pidcock’s second Grand Tour stage win continues, after he lost the reduced sprint into Matera on stage 5 of the Giro d’Italia. But the Q36.5 rider was satisfied with his third place, only lacking the “raw power” to come out of Mads Pedersen’s (Lidl-Trek) wheel.
Pidcock had to launch from sixth position after the final corner, with Pedersen being led out perfectly again by Mathias Vacek. The Brit was then forced to slow down momentarily, as Pedersen gradually wound up his effort to the line, losing the momentum he’d already built up.
As the line approached, Pidcock tried to pull out of Pedersen’s slipstream but could barely come alongside, as the Dane, in typical fashion, still mustered up enough of a charge to hold off both the Brit and a surging Edoardo Zambanini.
“I timed my sprint well, and I went into Mads’ wheel, but he didn’t kick as hard as I thought – not that I was going to go in the wind so early – but I had to slow down in his wheel,” Pidcock told reporters at the finish.
“To come around when you’re just in the drag race, well, that’s not happening, so maybe I should have just gone straight past, but that would’ve been a long way. Third place is not bad, it was not the perfect finish for me, pretty explosive, not bad.”
Pidcock wasn’t sure of the result, asking the press, “Did Mads win, actually? I thought the Bahrain guy maybe was coming pretty fast”, but he was, however, certain that not much could’ve been done to prevent Lidl-Trek securing the hat-trick of stage wins.
Several of the final uncategorised rises approaching the idyllic, old city in Basilicata looked like potential launch pads for an attack, but with Vacek controlling and the likes of Primož Roglič and UAE Team Emirates XRG only threatening to attack without full commitment, the sprint was the most likely outcome.
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“Unless you have a guy like Vacek on the front, then there’s not much you can do, you just have to go with the race,” said Pidcock. “It was a bit of a hard final, now racing is so hard, and there’s still 100 guys left in the bunch, you have to stay focused.
“The final climb came a bit fast, and I was a bit far back. At that point, I just wanted to follow. I was thinking about maybe trying something over the top, that’s where you could maybe have made a difference, but on the climb, it was too short, really, and everyone was going the same pace.”
But still, his conclusion was one of contentment, with the stage that perhaps suits him best coming in a few days on stage 9, where the gravel of Strade Bianche will characterise what should be a stunning day of the 2025 Giro d’Italia.
After lacking that final sprint to best the likes of Pedersen, Pidcock will be on favoured terrain in Tuscany, and hoping to not have things come down to any sort of reduced finish in the Piazza del Campo, as he did in the 2023 edition of the Italian Classic.
“It is how it is. I knew that to come around Mads, I needed a little bit more speed – I’m not going to come past with raw power, and then when I slowed down, I couldn’t pick up speed again,” said Pidcock, who never thought the Dane was out of it, even despite him losing 20 places in the final 3km.
“We all know how strong he is, that he can just keep going, and it’s no surprise that he came back and is still able to sprint like that.
“Today gives me more of a taste of being so close, because it was a pretty tough stage in the end. We were going super easy for the first part, and no one wanted to go in the breakaway, so everyone was super fresh. People could get over some really tough climbs, so you have to keep focused, and not get demoralised by how many people are still there.”
Pidcok was far from demoralised at the finish in Matera, and that second win at a Grand Tour looks like it could be just around the corner, but he’s going to have to summon a similar effort to that which he used to propel up Alpe d’Huez at the Tour de France three years ago if he is to claim a maiden Giro success.
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