Tom Pidcock recovers from nasty fall to secure Cross-country Olympic World Cup men’s elite race victory

Tom Pidcock recovered from a nasty fall to win the UCI Mountain Bike World Series Cross-country Olympic World Cup men’s elite race in Nove Mesto.

In the Czech drizzle, it was chaos from the start as a crash moments after the race got under way disrupted proceedings.

Luca Schwarzbauer (Canyon CLLCTV) avoided the commotion to make the early running, and he was aided by another pile-up behind him on lap two as a decent gap opened up.

But the pack of favourites – including Ineos Grenadiers’ Pidcock and world champion Nino Schurter – came back to Schwarzbauer, and Pidcock wasted no time in moving to the front and developing his own lead.

Joshua Dubau was the only man who could go with him, but there was drama on lap five as Pidcock first unclipped on a rocky ascent to cede time, and then crashed on a downhill section to give Dubau the lead.

Pidcock had open cuts down his left side, but he eventually came back to Dubau, and the pair faced a final-lap shootout.

“It was tricky,” Pidcock said afterwards. “My tyres were a bit hard and I was struggling with the roots but it is nice to win.”

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