British cross-country (XCO) Olympics hopeful, and reigning Olympic Champion, Tom Pidcock has had to pull out of the Tour de France just two weeks before the Paris Games begin. The men’s XCO race will take place on 29 July, and the women’s one day before. If you want to know how to watch the Olympics for free, check out our guide here.

Pidcock left the Tour after stage 13, with his team announcing, “A disappointed Tom Pidcock will not line up for stage 14 of the Tour de France today. Tom is experiencing symptoms of Covid-19 and under advice from our medical team will now return home to recover.”

It comes after he finished second in the notorious ‘gravel’ stage 9 earlier in the week. He’s not the only member of the Ineos squad to have a case of Covid, with Geraint Thomas reportedly also suffering from the virus, but still managing to continue so far.

Pidcock showing off at Nové Město earlier this year – hopefully he can still bring some of this panache to the race in Paris.

Can Pidcock still defend his gold medal?

For the British men’s squad, we’ve got Charlie Aldridge and Tom Pidcock racing for medals. Pidcock has had a pretty solid season on the mountain bike so far this year – when he’s not been racing on the road, that is. He won the Nové Město World Cup round for the fourth time in June, stamping his authority on the race, as well as dominating the Crans Montana round in extremely tricky conditions on a course hailed as one of the most technical ever.

While he might be suffering from Covid symptoms currently, we can hope he gets the rest and recovery needed to still make an impact on the Olympic race at the end of July. After attempting to defend his gold medal in the XCO race, he’s also scheduled to participate in the Olympic road race on 3 August.

Among the favourites to win the XCO in Paris alongside Pidcock is Nino Schurter, in what could be his swansong event, particularly as Mathieu van der Poel has not qualified for a spot among the restricted start list. How long it takes for the British rider to recover from COVID remains to be seen.

If you want to find out how to watch the race in full, read our guide to find out how you can watch the mountain biking at the Olympics for free. Jamie’s also written a handy guide to the course, too. Although you might find it slightly more entertaining to watch Puck Pieterse walking you through the test event from last year.

And in the absence of any downhill racing at the Olympics (come on, Olympic committee, get your act together) we won’t be seeing the riders competing on anything particularly technical. Instead, it’s a 4.4km circuit with 110m of climbing and is expected to be seriously fast, rather than technically challenging.

We hope Pidcock will be back to his best for the race, but we know he’ll give the viewers one hell of a ride to watch at the end of July, even if he doesn’t come away with gold for the second Games running.