Tom Pidcock woke up on Tuesday morning to his 25th birthday but with little chance to celebrate.
Having just picked up back-to-back mountain bike Olympics titles, there was a brief visit to the house his parents have rented in Paris – one assumes to open some cards and blow out the candles on his birthday cake.
But his attention was almost immediately shifting to the prospect of an unlikely double in the road race on Saturday.
For most, the thought would be an impossibility but such is Pidcock’s versatility - not to mention the manner in which he pulled off the gold on Monday - that anything is possible.
In the space of a few weeks, he has gone from vying for stage wins in the Tour de France to switching to mountain biking and then back onto the road.
Asked about his goal in the immediate aftermath of his gold, he said: “I’m too tired to think about that.”
And with good reason. Pidcock had been the overwhelming favourite to come away with the mountain bike gold and lived up to the pre-race billing as he pulled away from the field before a puncture.
A miscommunication meant his mechanic was initially unaware and the delay cost Pidcock around half a minute.
It had echoes of Josh Tarling in the men’s individual time trial back in the Parisian rain on Sunday but, while Tarling struggled to wrestle back too much time, Pidcock picked up rider after rider in his pursuit of gold. And he looked remarkably calm in the process.
He said: “There’s no point in stressing over it is there? That’s not going to help me get back to the front. What’s the point in stressing? I have had enough stress this week.
“But 30 seconds is a lot on this course. It was not easy. I had someone telling me I was in eighth. I didn’t give a f*** what position I was in. I wanted to know how far it is in front.”
He finally made his way to the front with an audacious move past home favourite Victor Koretzky, the pair briefly barging shoulders as Pidcock shot past and his French rival lost his rhythm.
It led to boos from the partisan crowd both at the finish and on the podium afterwards.
Of the French crowd turning on him, he said: “The boos are a shame because that’s not really the spirit of the Olympics. But I do understand that the French are very passionate, they wanted Victor to win.
“That was understandable. They didn’t boo the rock that made me puncture! But I didn’t do anything wrong.”
But he was adamant he had done nothing wrong, a racing manoeuvre and one backed by the officials in the immediate aftermath.
He said: “I came here to win and that is all I was thinking about. The Olympics are so special, it is bigger than cycling, so you never give up and you give everything.
“I knew if I stayed closer to Victory then I could make a move in the last part where he wasn’t expecting it. He left a gap and I had to take it. It’s what I have always done and the Olympics are no different.”
It begged the question of whether he might try for the hat-trick of titles in Los Angeles. Exhausted after a remarkable ride to gold, he understandably said, “That I can’t answer now.”
