'Three years, three times a second' - Pidcock left frustrated after another Giro dell'Emilia near-miss

Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) admitted he was “just a bit frustrated” after finishing second at the Giro dell’Emilia for the third consecutive edition. 

Pidcock arrived in Italy off the back of seventh place at the World Championships in Montréal, having animated the race in the closing laps. 

Combined with his strong showing in Canada, and the fact that he finished runner-up in the previous two editions of the Giro dell’Emilia behind Tadej Pogačar and Isaac del Toro, Pidcock was one of the leading contenders to win atop the San Luca climb. 

The Briton was firmly in the mix on the final lap; however, Visma | Lease a Bike ultimately had the team strength to roll the dice early. 

This enabled an in-form Davide Piganzoli (Visma | Lease a Bike) to fly the coop inside the final 5km on the downhill run-in to the final San Luca ascent. 

With Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike) playing the pitch-perfect teammate role, just as he did in Montréal, Pidcock’s chances of victory looked to have narrowly slipped from his grasp for the third year running.

He did manage to break clear of the rest of the chasing pack alongside Oscar Onley on the final San Luca ascent before detonating one final explosive punch towards the finish line. 

Ultimately though, Piganzoli built up too much of a head start and secured the victory by three seconds over Pidcock.

“Just in the end, a shame that I didn’t have the legs to quite catch Piganzoli on the last climb. I felt good,” Pidcock said of the finish.

“I’m just a bit frustrated. Three years, three times a second. But plenty more racing this week. I think I’m going to race tomorrow as well.”

The result was also Pidcock’s fifth runner-up finish on the road this season, with the 27-year-old winning five times this season on the road, and three of those coming on Italian soil. 

Additionally, Pidcock won the mountain bike world championships for the second time in his career, in Val di Sole, Italy back in August.

The Briton will now look to carry his good form into the final races of the Italian Autumn, with Il Lombardia on 10 October providing a major target. He finished sixth in the race of the falling leaves last season.

“There is some disappointment because the legs were clearly there and, with Tom, we came extremely close to winning,” said Sports Director Gabriele Missaglia. 

“Sometimes races are decided by these kinds of team dynamics. But we can take a lot from the way we raced today and from Tom’s condition. We are in a good place and now we look ahead to the next races.”