Tom Pidcock climbs from Tour de France outsider to contender

The 23-year-old has bounced back from an uncertain start to climb into the top 10 but knows the acid test comes this week

GOING WELL: With Carlos Rodríguez fourth and Tom Pidcock, above, seventh, Ineos Grenadiers are the only team with two riders in the Tour’s top 10. File pic: Simon Marper/PA Wire.

Tom Pidcock is one of three Britons in the top 10 of this year’s Tour de France as the race takes a pause for breath in Clermont-Ferrand on the first of two rest days, and is steadily moving up the General Classification.

With Carlos Rodríguez fourth and Pidcock seventh, Ineos Grenadiers are the only team with two riders in the Tour’s top 10. And Pidcock, who finished 43 seconds behind the defending champion, Jonas Vingegaard, in Sunday’s mountain finish on the Puy de Dôme, says he is relishing a new challenge. The 23-year-old Yorkshireman, a stage winner at Alpe d’Huez in last year’s Tour, is gradually transitioning from opportunist to contender while bringing renewed focus to an Ineos team that was suffering from a sense of drift.