Pidcock, who is famed in cycling for being a ‘demon descender’ – following his 2022 Tour de France stage win on Alpe d’Huez, in which he reached speeds of 100km/h – described the crash in March as “like one of these horror crashes you see… I [was] lucky I could talk on the radio”.

The double Olympic mountain bike champion had been having a good season until the crash, narrowly losing out on victory at the Milan-San Remo monument race to Tadej Pogacar.

Pidcock is riding the Tour of the Alps in preparation for Sunday’s monument Liege-Bastogne-Liege, before taking on the Tour de France for the first time for the team he joined last year.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Ben Tulett said it was a “big surprise” to finish third in the traditional build-up race to Liege-Bastogne-Liege, La Fleche Wallonne.

Visma-Lease a Bike’s Tulett, 24, just lost out near the top of the famous Mur de Huy climb in Belgium to the much-hailed new French talent Paul Seixas of Decathlon CMA CGM, who beat Switzerland’s Mauro Schmid to victory.