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• Tom Pidcock happy to ‘play down’ yellow jersey ambitions at Tour de France

  Tom Pidcock is reluctant to call it a target but the opportunity to take the yellow jersey on the opening weekend of this year’s Tour de France has not escaped his notice.

  The 23-year-old will race his second Tour this July, and said his goal is to do better than he did on debut last summer.

  That might seem a lofty ambition given how Pidcock stormed to a stunning solo stage victory on the Alpe d’Huez, the descending skills with which he escaped his breakaway companions still talked of with awe.

  But it would get even more attention if the Ineos Grenadiers rider enjoyed a spell in yellow, and a lumpy opening stage in the Basque Country offers a rider of Pidcock’s talents a chance.

  “I think it is (an opportunity), yeah,” he told the PA news agency. “It’s a possibility and something that I am aware is a possibility. I think the first stage of the Tour is one that can be treated like a one-day classic, it’s going to be a super-hard day.”

  When told that sounds non-committal, Pidcock quickly adds: “I’m just playing it down.”

  Pidcock, who proved his one-day credentials at Strade Bianche in March, is far from alone in eyeing that opening stage, but he has other goals in July too.

  He wants to show greater consistency in the general classification, and also to win a stage from the main bunch rather than a break.

  “Last year I was going to the Tour two months after being ill in the spring and then getting Covid, it was not the perfect lead in,” he said. “I think this year I’m stronger and I can do better, basically.”

  Pidcock is certainly riding high on the back of his recent spell on the mountain bike.

  The Olympic champion took two victories from the World Cup round in Novo Mesto, first storming from last to first to win a short track race he only learned he was riding with a couple of hours’ notice, then recovering from a lap-five crash to win the cross-country race.

   

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  It came after he finished second in Liege-Bastogne-Liege and third in the Amstel Gold Race at the end of April.

  The run of form is affirmation for the work Pidcock did in the winter, when he chose not to defend his cyclo-cross world title but instead focus on conditioning.

  Although a crash at Tirreno-Adriatico in late March punched a hole in some of his ambitions, the core fitness remains.

  “Definitely I feel I’m a bit more robust and certainly at a higher level and I have been for longer and I think that’s partly from the extra time spent building a base preparing,” he said. “I think that’s only going to carry into the rest of the season.”

  Throughout his young career to date, the Yorkshireman has juggled the demands of road, mountain bike and cross, but always knew there would come a time when something had to give. This season has shown how that might look.

  “I think if I want to achieve the goals I do on the road, certainly there are going to have to be sacrifices in other disciplines,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean they don’t contribute and help with those ambitions.”

  There are likely to be sacrifices too at August’s World Championships in Scotland, where the first combined multi-discipline championships is creating dilemmas for several athletes given the schedule clashes.

  Pidcock plans to race his mountain bike, so is strongly leading towards skipping the road race which comes first and could come at a cost.

  “I don’t want to do both and go home with nothing,” he said. “I’d want to ride the road race because it’s a home race and it will be a super nice experience and I think the worlds is a very special particular race where you never know what will happen.

  “It wouldn’t be a bad thing to ride, I want to ride, but would it be the best thing? I don’t know.”

  :: Tom Pidcock is a Red Bull athlete. Watch him appear in ‘Race Tapes‘, the new Red Bull series that delves into the lives of the world’s leading riders across all disciplines.

• Ja's gymnasts take positives from failed qualification bid at PanAm Champs in Colombia

  Despite failing to secure qualification to the Pan American (PanAm) Games nor the World Championships, Jamaica's artistic gymnasts Tyesha Mattis and Kiara Richmon took heart from their respective performances at the just-concluded PanAm Gymnastics Championships in Medellin, Colombia. 

  Mattis, Richmon and newcomer Mya Absolam, all produced credible showings in a highly competitive environment at the three-day championships which ended on Sunday but were unable to break into a coveted top 12 position.

  The England-born Mattis, who was Jamaica’s standout performer at last year’s event when she qualified for the World championships, expressed some disappointment that she wasn’t able to repeat the feat, as she was firmly set on getting to the PanAm Games in Chile and the World Championships in Belgium, later this year.

  She placed 32^nd overall with an all-around total of 44.500, after scoring 12.867 on vault, 10.533 on uneven bars, 10.733 on the balance beam and 10.367 for her floor routine.

  "I was happy with parts of my performances, but I felt like I put a little bit too much pressure on myself to qualify and so I didn’t do as well as I would have liked to,” Mattis said shortly after competition.

  However, the 24-year-old did find a few positive takeaways that she hopes to improve on ahead of next month’s Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in El Salvador, when she is next expected to parade her skills for the island.

  “I managed to complete a 2 1/2 twist off beam again after not putting that out in competition for over four years, so I am super proud of myself in that regards as I am proving to myself that I can do more than I am limiting myself to,” she reasoned.

  “I am more than capable, and I just need to trust that my body can do the work and again, not putting too much pressure on myself. I work so hard in the gym and when I really wanted to put out my best, I made a couple mistakes.

  “But I have to remember I’m only human and I can learn from some of my mistakes and so I am really looking forward to a better performance out in El Salvador in a couple weeks. Looking forward to trying some different routines there and putting out more of my skills as I know I have so much more up my sleeve and the more I compete internationally, the more confident I feel,” Mattis added.

  For Richmon, who placed 36^th overall with an all-around score of 42.866, just being able to represent Jamaica at the event, represents a remarkable achievement and another significant milestone in her budding career.

  Her total includes score of 11.100 on vault, 10.233 on the uneven bars, 10.400 on the balance beam and 11.133 for her floor routine.

  “I feel like I did my best with my performance at the championships, especially being that I only had two weeks to prepare. So, I am definitely proud that I was able to hit all four apparatus and getting to be here with the team,” Richmon shared.

  With this being her first elite outing since 2019, the 21-year-old Fisk University student is eagerly looking forward to continuing her journey, as her unwavering determination, relentless work ethic and immense potential positions her as one of country’s gymnast to watch.

  “It felt amazing, and this performance will definitely serve as motivation for me going forward, I just need to just trust my training and do not over work myself. I also need to have more confidence and belief in myself and hopefully on my next competition I can produce a stronger performance with cleaner routines,” the US-born Richmon said.

  Meanwhile, Absolam, another England-born gymnast, had an all-around total of 39.533, after scoring 10.333, 10.033, 8.600, 10.567, on vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor, respectively. She placed 42^nd overall.

  On the male side, Canada-born Elel Wahrmann-Baker, was Jamaica’s top performer, placing 27^th overall, with an all-around total of 72.301. Wahrmann-Baker had scores of 12.767 on floor, 13.067 on the pommel horse, 11.067 on rings, 13.100 on vault, 13.133 parallel bars and 10.167 on high bar.

  Caleb Faulk placed 29th overall with scores of 12.300, 10.900, 12.400, 12.767, 11.9667 and 11.667 for an all-Around total of 72.001, while Matthew McClymont tallied 63.165 for 47^th overall. His scores include 12.233, 9.133, 7.533, 12.733, 10.800 and 10.733.

  Jamaica’s other representative Michael Reid only took on the pommel horse and parallel bars where he scored 11.933 and 12.467 for a total 24.400.

   

• Mark Cavendish lands emotional victory in final stage of farewell Giro d’Italia

  Mark Cavendish won the final stage of his last Giro d’Italia to spark scenes of huge emotion in Rome as Primoz Roglic confirmed his overall victory.

  Cavendish, who announced on the second rest day of this race that this season would be his last, made it look easy as he opened up several bike lengths over Alex Kirsch and Fernando Gaviria even before a crash on the final approach split the bunch.

  It was a 17th career Giro stage win for the 38-year-old Manxman, who kept alive his record of winning at least one stage every time he had taken part in the Italian Grand Tour.

  It was also Cavendish’s first win of the season and first with the Astana-Qazaqstan team, a timely confidence boost as he now turns his attentions to the Tour de France and his bid to take the stage win record there outright.

  Astana may not have the greatest sprint pedigree or a lead-out train for Cavendish, but that hardly mattered when he had Geraint Thomas – who lost the pink jersey to Roglic on Saturday’s time trial – lending a hand, the Ineos Grenadiers rider offering a lead-out going into the final two kilometres.

  The oldest ever stage winner in Giro history was a hugely popular one as Roglic and Thomas were quick to offer their congratulations.

  Roglic takes the overall win by 14 seconds from Thomas, the fourth smallest margin of victory in Giro history.