Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) will skip a third consecutive cyclocross winter and may never return unless the discipline enters the Olympics, he has told Dutch publication WielerFlits.
The 27-year-old considered returning after the 2025 road season but changed his mind once he had completed his final road race of the season, which was Il Lombardia. Combining another winter campaign with his road programme no longer appealed.
“At the end of the 2025 road season it seemed nice to me to race cyclocross again,” Pidcock said. “But when I had ridden my last road race, I thought, ‘Nah, maybe not after all. It's too much.’”
Asked whether he could have raced his final cyclocross event, Pidcock left that possibility open and linked any return to the Olympic programme.
“I’m not going to say ‘no’ to that,” he said. “But at the moment things don’t look good for cyclocross at the Olympic Games, do they? In any case, that does not personally help me to make a return to cyclocross. If cyclocross gets a place at the Games, then I do think I will race cyclocross again.”
Pidcock won the cyclocross world title at Fayetteville in 2022 but has competed in only 12 crosses since surrendering the rainbow jersey the following year. His last victory came at the Namur World Cup in December 2023, while his most recent appearance was at Benidorm in January 2024.
Pidcock has been one of cyclocross’s biggest stars, forming part of the discipline’s established Big Three alongside Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel. The sport has benefited from the huge road audiences those riders bring, but as we investigated in more depth in the winer, it has also become commercially dependent on their presence. Pidcock’s permanent departure would likely significantly impact cyclocross’ visibility for the wider cycling audience.
Cyclocross remains outside the 2030 Olympics
On May 7, the IOC said the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps would not include cyclocross, rejecting a proposed package of crossover sports. Cyclocross, gravel cycling and the two running disciplines were excluded because they are not normally contested on snow or ice.
“We have already decided that no summer sport and no all-season sport will be included,” IOC president Kirsty Coventry said. “It will only be snow and ice.”
UCI president David Lappartient and World Athletics president Sebastian Coe had backed a joint course-and-infrastructure plan pairing cyclocross with cross-country running. La Planche des Belles Filles had been discussed as a possible venue, while the UCI staged snowy World Cup races at Val di Sole to demonstrate that cyclocross could be held in winter conditions.
Salt Lake City 2034 is now the earliest plausible target for inclusion, although the IOC has made no commitment to reconsider the discipline.
Pidcock already has two Olympic titles in mountain bike cross-country, winning at Tokyo 2020 and retaining the title at Paris 2024. He is currently in Québec ahead of Friday’s Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and Sunday’s race in Montréal. The road World Championships will return him to Montréal on September 27.
