'He told me to grow some balls' - Pidcock laughs off Almeida's Vuelta jibes

Tom Pidcock could only laugh when the question was put to him beyond the finish line at Valdezcaray. What precisely had João Almeida shouted at him as they chased Jonas Vingegaard on the summit finish of stage 9 of the Vuelta a España?

“He told me to grow some balls,” Pidcock smiled. “But if he rides a bit slower, I’ll give him some more turns…”

Pidcock was quick enough to outsprint Almeida for second place on the stage, 24 seconds down on a rampant Vingegaard, and his performance was enough to lift him to fourth place overall, 1:35 down on red jersey Torstein Træen. 

It was, by any measure, a fine day’s work for Pidcock, who is riding this Vuelta with a view to gauging his prospects as a general classification rider. Pidcock, being Pidcock, he also had designs on stage victory here, and his Q36.5 squad had spent much of the day shutting down the five-man break.

The tenor of the day changed on the lower slopes of the category 1 haul to the finish, as Vingegaard ripped clear with 11km remaining. Rather than try to follow the Dane’s infernal rhythm, Pidcock sagely hitched his wagon to Almeida’s diesel engine.

“Of course, we wanted to go for the stage, but Jonas is Jonas: you shouldn’t give him a gap,” said Pidcock.

While Egan Bernal and Felix Gall wilted under the weight of Almeida’s forcing, Pidcock managed to hang tough all the way to the top, even if his occasional turns were not as forceful as the UAE Team Emirates-XRG man would have liked.

“I thought Almeida was a perfect wheel to get on, and I thought maybe we could come back,” Pidcock said. “I mean chapeau to him, I couldn’t give him any turns. He was shouting at me, but he’s like a tractor, especially when we got on the flatter section. And the last kilometre, when he went, it was impressive. I could barely come around him at the finish. I’m happy, to be honest.”

Pidcock never truly committed to riding for GC at a Grand Tour during his time at Ineos, but there has been a change in outlook since his switch to Q36.5 last winter. He was relatively subdued at the Giro d’Italia, reaching Rome in 16th place, but he has looked altogether more assured at this Vuelta, consistently finishing with the GC men every time the road climbs.

His Valdezcaray display was his best outing yet at this Vuelta, and Pidcock will hope it augurs well for the tests ahead. 

“I think it’s difficult to fully know what my capabilities are. Sometimes I’m a bit cautious, but that definitely gives me confidence coming into the harder stages to come,” said Pidcock, who was heartened by the time gained on men like Ciccone on the final climb.

“When these guys were jumping around doing full-on sprints in the middle of climbs, I always thought that one day it was going to bite them back. But there’s a long way to go, I’m not taking any conclusions from it yet.”