Tom Pidcock is suffering from stomach problems that might put his Spring Classics season in doubt, it has emerged.
The Ineos Grenadiers rider did not finish Milan-San Remo on Saturday, after being dropped early on on the capi climbs. His coach Kurt Bogaerts revealed that he had to take an emergency toilet stop, which incurred him a fine from the commissaires.
The 22-year old was already forced to miss Strade Bianche, with the ongoing illness issues possibly taking him out of contention of further one-day races in the coming weeks. The Tour of Flanders is just under a fortnight away.
Bogaerts indicated that the issue on Saturday was "similar" to the issue that ruled him out of Strade Bianche.
"Tom had to go to the toilet seriously. Even afterwards, his stomach did not feel one hundred per cent healthy. There was no point in racing any further," Bogaerts told Het Laatste Nieuws after the race.
Pidcock has had blood tests performed on him as Ineos seek to get to the bottom of what is causing his lack of fitness. There are now doubts over whether he will line up at Dwars door Vlaanderen next Wednesday.
He was then scheduled to race Flanders, the Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège amongst others.
"We are going to investigate this. Tom had a blood test on Wednesday and we hope that based on those results we can find a cause," Bogaerts told HLN.
"His next race would be Dwars door Vlaanderen, but that is now uncertain. We are not going to make a race schedule until this problem is solved."
In his debut season in 2021, Pidcock won Brabantse Pijl and came second at the Amstel Gold Race, and this season was expected to build on this promise.
While Pidcock was originally schedule to take part in the Giro d'Italia in May, there have been reports that Ineos could send him to the Tour de France in July, possibly instead. If his stomach problems persist, his season could be refocused around this goal.
