UCI Cycling World Championships 2023: Tom Pidcock accused of 'crashing out' rival to win medal
- Published
GB's Tom Pidcock wins mountain bike short track bronze
UCI Cycling World Championships 2023 |
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Hosts: Glasgow and across Scotland Dates: 3-13 August |
Coverage: Watch live across BBC TV and iPlayer, with 200 hours of live streams on the BBC's digital platforms |
Great Britain's Tom Pidcock was accused of "crashing out" a rival in order to win a bronze medal at the Cycling World Championships in Scotland.
The Olympic mountain biking champion was fourth going into the final corner of the cross-country short track final.
The 24-year-old then appeared to make contact as he sneaked down the inside of Luca Schwarzbauer to snatch third.
"I know he's Tom Pidcock and he's a superstar, but this doesn't give him the right to do that," said the German.
Schwarzbauer, 26, slid to the deck and ultimately finished in ninth place in Glentress Forest.
The German is strictly a cross-country mountain biker but as well as winning Olympic mountain bike gold in 2021, Pidcock was last year's cyclo-cross world champion and finished 13th in this year's Tour de France.
"He crashed me out, he completely rode into me in that corner," said Schwarzbauer.
"I said a few words to him and said it was a very bad move, in my eyes.
"When he rides like this I'm going to crash because he was straight into me and he used me as a barrier.
"He ran full gas into [the corner] and I think no mountain biker would do this at all, like a pure mountain biker, the community of us.
"He's so aggressive, you can really see he's the most aggressive rider. No-one else rides like this. You can do this but in my eyes it's not really sportsman[like]."
Yorkshireman Pidcock said: "I went for the inside and pushed him out on to the gravel and then Luca's crashed unfortunately."
Asked if the riders touched, the multi-discipline star replied "probably".
This year's Tour de France only finished on 23 July and Pidcock came into these championships with Saturday's cross-country Olympic race as his main target.
"I'm pretty happy," he added. "I only did this to prepare for Saturday but this morning I was pretty up for it and it's nice to have a medal.
"This is not really my sort of race so it's good for Saturday. My legs were not super but come the weekend I think it will be OK."