Tom 'Pidders' Pidcock

[awavey]

Suggests either top boy Allert or some of his performance team are on their way.

well theres a bunch of new staff theyve just hired...

New staff and performance structure changes announced

www.ineosgrenadiers.com

 

[Strawberry_Jams]

The “new Ineos” was often all about trying to replicate the old Ineos, which meant a lot of culture meetings. At one of these meetings in early 2024, according to an employee who was present, Allert told the Ineos Grenadiers he wanted them to think of themselves as a “tribe,” where everyone’s job was to protect the tribe and if you didn’t you’d be kicked out.

During this meeting, said the source, Pidcock raised his hand and said something along the lines of: “So you’re saying if we don’t fall in line we get booted out?” to which Allert replied: “Yes.”

“Well, that’s ***,” was Pidcock’s reaction, the employee recalled.

Another source with deep knowledge of the team corroborated the events, but said that Allert’s presentation was instead a 40-minute monologue where he told the team it had not been performing to standards. Pidcock, the source said, was the only one to stand up and back the riders and staff from what he viewed as unfair criticism, which drew respect from a lot of the team.

This interaction set the stage for a relationship that made headlines throughout the season, as Pidcock tested Allert’s proclamation and, in general, got his way. Cycling is, fundamentally, an individual sport competed in by teams; that tension underlies much of what Ineos went through this year.

As the previously mentioned long-time associate of the team told Escape, “Ineos have set up an athlete-centred and -driven system which gives all power to [riders]. So when they tell Tom he has to go to this training camp or complete the Tour, he turns around and says no, he wants to concentrate on winning gold at Paris so will do it the way he wants. They don’t have control over Tom.”

The lack of control over their 25-year-old star extended to Pidcock’s absence from their pre-Tour training camp on Tenerife, with the Brit instead opting to stay in Andorra to prepare for the Grand Tour alone, where he could also focus on quietly getting ready for the Olympic mountain bike race. The source who corroborated the Allert presentation said this plan to stay in Andorra was agreed between team and rider, but Pidcock was the only member of the Tour team not to join the camp on Teide.

Extract from escape collectives piece


Oh also anyone who was at the rouleur live with pidcock tonight, feel free to drop some hot gos if there was any 😊