A 'weird' day, but Tom Pidcock prevails at Milano-Torino

Before the start of Milano-Torino, debutant Tom Pidcock downplayed the importance of knowing the minute details of the final climb up Superga. The Briton had never ridden up it before, but he reckoned it couldn’t be too hard to figure out on the hoof.

“It’s a hard climb, that’s all I know,” Pidcock said. “But what is there to know? It’s uphill…”

Pidcock’s instincts served him well here. He was content to track Primož Roglič’s move at a distance on the first lap over the climb, and he was careful to size up the Slovenian before delivering his race-winning attack with 600m to go on the second ascent.

Roglič was impressive throughout and when he stretched the front group to breaking point with a long, seated stint of forcing in the final 2km, it looked as though he might nab his second win at this race after his 2021 triumph.

Pidcock, however, was simply waiting for his moment, and the Pinarello-Q36.5 rider quickly opened a gap over the five-strong leading group when he accelerated. He held firm to claim victory by four seconds from a dogged Tobias Halland Johannessen, while Roglič had to settle for third.

“Primož is hard to read, he’s always in the saddle,” Pidcock said afterwards. “I was expecting him to be good there and I was hesitating to attack in the end. Everyone was looking pretty strong, but I knew at one point I had to go.”

Pidcock will hope to collect bigger prizes this year – starting with Milan-Sanremo on Saturday, perhaps – but Milano-Torino, 150 years young, is a prestigious line on his palmarès in its own right. 

“A win is a win,” Pidcock said. “They’re not easy to come by, but of course it’s nice to get your hands in the air.”

The victory was the twelfth of Pidcock’s road career and his second of the season after he landed the final stage of the Ruta del Sol. The Briton’s form perhaps deserved more in his February slate of racing in Spain, though he later struggled with the cold at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and was overshadowed, like just about everybody else, by Tadej Pogačar at Strade Bianche.

Pidcock opted to sit out Tirreno-Adriatico with an eye to his participation at next week’s Volta a Catalunya, and that freshness may well have played a part in a finale where he outgunned riders who had lined out at the Race of the Two Seas.

“It was a weird day,” Pidcock said. “It felt like a first race of the season almost. With the race rhythm and all the accelerations all day, I felt a bit heavy legged, but luckily in the end, I had a kick there and I could hold them off.”

The win underscores Pidcock's pre-Sanremo form, but he acknowledged that La Primavera would be a different challenge, not least with Pogačar primed to attack on the Cipressa.

“No, I think Milan-Sanremo is very different, it’s very explosive,” Pidcock told CyclingPro.net “Of course, it shows I’m in good shape, but being in good shape doesn’t mean everything. Last year I was in really good shape and then I was in the worst position, and I crashed at the bottom of the Cipressa, so anything can happen. But it’s one of my favourite races, so hopefully I can be there on the front. We know what’s going to happen on the Cipressa, don’t we? We’ll do our best…”