What happened to Tom Pidcock when he was dropped in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad?

De Gendt, a pure engine by trade, was not showing up in top form in this kind of race for the first time. The 31-year-old Belgian was seventh in a hard E3 Classic last year and spent much of the day in the break at the Clásica Jaén earlier this season. His legs were clearly in order again — good enough to turn a brutal, rain-and-wind-soaked Omloop into a fifth place.

De Gendt was still able to ride clear of the peloton behind winner Mathieu van der Poel and the duo of Tim van Dijke and Florian Vermeersch — just as Christophe Laporte (Visma | Lease a Bike) managed to do. “With all the crashes and the cold, the main thing was to stay out of trouble. I’ve made the best of it with fifth place,” he said afterwards on X.

The big question afterwards was simple: where was Tom Pidcock? The 26-year-old Brit had looked sharp earlier in the season, winning a stage in the Ruta del Sol, and he also finished on the podium in both the Tour of Murcia (third) and Clásica Jaén (second) after a high-altitude camp in Chile. But in Omloop, Pidcock was dropped right as the finale exploded. He still finished the race — 48th, around two minutes down on the winner.

“To be honest, it was about surviving from the moment it started raining after 30 kilometres,” Pidcock explained. “I could only focus on staying warm and not crashing — it was a battle with myself.”

Pinarello–Q36.5 added that Pidcock didn’t simply lose contact on legs alone. He was forced to change bikes after someone rode into his derailleur, and from that moment he was chasing back.

“At least I didn’t crash, so I’m happy I got through it. That’s positive,” Pidcock concluded. His next major date is already circled: Strade Bianche on 7 March.