"Terrible, awful": Pidcock second on return from injury but pulls no punches about his form

Tommaso Dati won the opening stage of the Tour of the Alps in Innsbruck on Monday. Tom Pidcock finished second. Two very different reactions followed.

For the Italian riding for Japanese continental outfit Team UKYO, it was the biggest win of his career — a stage that confirmed what a second-place finish at the Coppi e Bartali earlier this season had hinted at. For Pidcock, back in his first race after a severe crash at the Volta a Catalunya three weeks ago, it was the other end of the spectrum.

Pidcock was characteristically blunt. Rolling to a halt by the Pinarello-Q36.5 soigneurs on the Rennweg in central Innsbruck, his opening words were direct: "That was the worst day." He expanded only slightly for the press a few minutes later.

"Terrible, awful," he told Domestique. "It was like we were going full gas up every climb. It was the worst day ever on the bike."

A second-place finish on his return from a broken tibia and torn ankle ligament might look respectable from the outside. Pidcock was having none of it. "Yeah, but there's no sprinters here, so that's not very difficult, is it? I just followed in the wheel. I had no sprint at all."

His targets for the week are clear: build form for Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday, where he will face Tadej Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel and others. Whether Monday's suffering reads as a warning sign or simply the unavoidable reality of returning from serious injury will become clearer on the climbs from Tuesday onwards.

As for positives: "No positives," he said. "The positive is that it can only get better."

Florian Stork of Tudor finished third, on a day his team deliberately targeted. Tudor drove the chase that brought Thymen Arensman back in the final metres, setting up a sprint they hoped Stork could win.

"The stage suited me well, especially with that final rise before the finish," Stork said. "The INEOS attack worked in my favour — it put the whole peloton on the limit."

His sprint was not quick enough to beat Dati, but he was measured about it. "Will Barta did brilliant work in the chase after Arensman, and Mathys Rondel gave me a perfect lead-out. I'm actually very happy with third, because we executed our plan perfectly." Tudor's priorities now shift to the overall classification. "The team's focus goes to Michael Storer's GC ambitions — we want to defend his title from last year."

Dati took time with every media outlet after the finish — including IDL Pro Cycling — and was visibly overwhelmed. "I'm so incredibly happy and proud," he said at the press conference. "I had confidence, but I didn't feel pressure today. Of course I wanted to win, and we knew between us that we had good legs. We tried to make it a sprint, and it worked."

Being the pre-race favourite as a continental rider among WorldTour stars was a curious situation, though Dati had a clear-eyed explanation for why. "I trained well and was ready. We were actually surprisingly calm, because our continental status means we don't feel the pressure."

The victory, he said, will only sharpen his ambitions. "Maybe my stint at Cofidis in 2025 lit a flame in me. I've shown here that I can compete at the highest level, and that gives me even more drive. I want to get to the WorldTour."

He is not done this week either. "We're not stopping here," he warned.