Tom Pidcock criticised for move in World Championships cross-country short track final – ‘He crashed me out’

Tom Pidcock was on the receiving end of criticism at the Cycling World Championships in Scotland after a controversial late move snared him bronze.

The Brit was fourth heading into the last corner of the cross-country short track final, before appearing to bump into Luca Schwarzbauer and usurp the German into third place.

The race was won by New Zealand’s Sam Gaze just ahead of France’s Victor Koretzky.

“I know he’s Tom Pidcock and he’s a superstar, but this doesn’t give him the right to do that,” said Schwarzbauer.

“He crashed me out, he completely rode into me in that corner.

“I said a few words to him and said it was a very bad move, in my eyes.

“When he rides like this I’m going to crash because he was straight into me and he used me as a barrier.

“He ran full gas into [the corner] and I think no mountain biker would do this at all, like a pure mountain biker, the community of us.

“He’s so aggressive, you can really see he’s the most aggressive rider. No-one else rides like this. You can do this but in my eyes it’s not really sportsman[like].”

In contrast, the incident did not appear to faze reigning Olympic mountain bike champion Pidcock, who only finished the Tour de France on July 23.

His impressive versatility came to the fore once again, after becoming cyclo-cross world champion last year, and coming 13th in the Tour.

This achievement also exceeded the 24-year-old’s expectations, with Saturday’s cross-country Olympic race his main priority.

“I went for the inside and pushed him out on to the gravel and then Luca’s crashed unfortunately,” Pidcock explained.

“I’m pretty happy,” he added. “I only did this to prepare for Saturday but this morning I was pretty up for it and it’s nice to have a medal.

“This is not really my sort of race so it’s good for Saturday. My legs were not super but come the weekend I think it will be OK.”