‘I’m pretty proud of myself’ says Tom Pidcock after retaining third place at the Vuelta

Tom Pidcock is on the verge of a career-best Grand Tour finish after a battling performance on Saturday’s Bola del Mundo mountain stage confirmed the Q36.5 Pro Cycling leader’s third place on GC.

“I really don’t know what to say now, except that I’m pretty proud of myself,” Pidcock said after a stage when he managed to rebuff the efforts made by Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) to eject him from third place on the Vuelta podium on the race’s final day in the mountains.

Pidcock lost just nine seconds to the Australian at the line and will go into Sunday’s stage with a buffer of 30 seconds on Hindley. Barring an unprecedented change of fortunes, the 26-year-old Yorkshireman looks set to finish behind Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) in the general classification on Sunday evening in Madrid.

Speaking to Eurosport after finishing fourth at Bola del Mundo, 18 seconds behind solo winner Vingegaard, Pidcock said that he felt confident going into this decisive test. “This morning I was super up for it, ready for the stage.

“We’d had two relatively easy days – well, the TT wasn’t easy, but it was short and yesterday was relatively easy compared to days we’ve been having. So today felt like a one-day race and that’s what I’m good at.”

Although Hindley did appear to be going away from the Briton at a couple of points in the closing two kilometres, Pidcock said that he never felt that he was going to lose much ground and that the biggest challenge was maintaining his tempo on Bola del Mundo’s savage ramps.

“It’s so hard to find a rhythm on these gradients and this rough surface. I still felt in control on the steepest climbs. But I didn’t want to go over my limit. All I had to do was stay within that and not blow,” he explained, adding: “I think it’s definitely the biggest performance of my career.”

While the Q36.5 leader still has to negotiate the final stage in Madrid, he admitted that he can now relax to some extent. “Day after day, you’re so focused on everything, on making sure you’re switched on for the race every day. But now I’m enjoying the fact that I can just sit here and don’t need to put this bloody jacket on and drink cherry juice and have a disgusting recovery shake,” he said in true Yorkshire fashion.