Britain’s Tom Pidcock says he loves descending but that the death of fellow cyclist Gino Mader has hit him hard.
Mader died aged 26 following a high-speed crash during a descent at the Tour de Suisse this month, where Ineos Grenadiers’ Pidcock was also competing.
Pidcock, 23, won stage 12 of last year’s Tour de France with several descents in excess of 60mph.
“Descending is something I love, but someone I race with died descending and it hit home quite hard,” he said.
Pidcock will contest this year’s Tour de France – which begins in the Spanish city of Bilbao on 1 July – and will aim to win mountainous stages again, including the first stage. But he admits the risks remain.
“Risks are involved in cycling. [Serious accidents] don’t happen often but it can go wrong and I guess we do what we can to mitigate those risks. But they’ll never be gone,” he said.
Swiss Mader, of the Bahrain Victorious team, was descending the Albula Pass at the end of stage five of the Tour de Suisse – a traditional warm-up for the Tour de France, in which he was also scheduled to compete.
Pidcock’s Ineos team-mate Magnus Sheffield, of the United States, also crashed – separately from Mader – at the same corner, suffering concussion and spending three days in hospital.
‘Descending is part of our sport’
“Obviously, it was a very emotional day for everyone in cycling and especially in Suisse and his team-mates and family,” added Pidcock.
“Descending is part of our sport and, unless we all want to race around motor racing circuits, we have to accept we will be racing down descents and I guess this was a bit of a fluke – a tailwind into a corner that wasn’t so sharp, but then it closed in a little bit.”
It is 12 years since the sport lost a rider on a descent at such a high level. Belgium’s Wouter Weylandt died in a crash descending at speed during the 2011 Giro d’Italia.
Pidcock’s team boss at Ineos, Rod Ellingworth, signed Mader for the Bahrain team when he was in charge there in 2020.
“It’s tragic. In that moment Magnus [Sheffield] was in a separate crash and dealing with that post-incident has been quite traumatic,” said Ellingworth.
“Gino was a good character – everyone knew him.
“The key here is that the [sport’s world governing body] UCI and race organisers move together. We, as a team, work closely with the UCI on safety aspects. We are very active, constantly feeding back on anything in which safety could be improved.
“This sport is what it is – it’s got beauty because of the mountains and everything. We all have a part to play to encourage the sport to get safer.
“But look at where they race – it’s always going to have that element of danger I think.”