“It seems you’re quite emotional?” an interviewer said to Mads Pedersen just a few moments after he had crossed the finish line in second place at the Tour of Flanders.
“No,” the Lidl-Trek rider replied with a rueful smile. “I’m just fucked.”
Pedersen, like his entire team, had left a part of his soul on the bergs of Belgium that afternoon. He had been dropped and he’d fought back to the front group, he’d attacked and he’d anticipated, he’d gurned and grimaced. All of it was to try and win his first ever Monument, a feat he’s been so painfully close to achieving on so many occasions, stretching all the way back to 2018. At the 2025 edition of De Ronde, though, there was one, rainbow-coloured obstacle that got in the way of Pedersen getting that final sweet taste of glory: a Tadej Pogačar firing on all cylinders.
“There’s absolutely nothing I regret. I couldn't do anything else. We have to accept it – he’s the best cyclist ever and he’s beating us fair and square. It’s not like we’re even close to beating him. He’s one minute ahead of us so chapeau to this guy. He’s making the image of cycling crazy big, so hats off,” Pedersen commented.
It’s true that Lidl-Trek left no stone unturned trying to get a first Ronde victory since Fabian Cancellara in 2014, throwing everything they could at Pogačar to try and upset the Slovenian rider’s frustratingly flawless riding. They played a smart numbers game: Dan Hoole was sent into the early break to act as a satellite rider for Pedersen, and Jasper Stuyven who anticipated the big attack that inevitably would come from Pogačar.
“In the end that early group I was in was perfect as we had a good gap, there was no one there from UAE and they had trouble closing it. But when you see how Pogačar comes across, that’s impressive. You can’t do much more than we did, he’s just so much better that it is hard to beat him,” Hoole said after the race.
Pedersen shared his teammate’s sentiment, appearing genuinely bemused as to what the solution is when it comes to getting ahead of the world champion. The Danish rider even took a different approach to this year’s edition of Flanders, waiting for the finale rather than anticipating Pogačar's attack himself – a lesson learned from his brave but ultimately unsuccessful attack at this race in 2024.
“If I would have attacked with 70 kilometres to go, you would have given me shit for that as you’re always talking about me being too early, so this time we believed in me being able to follow them and today I showed I was able to follow for quite long,” he said. “In the end, the way Tadej is riding away and he’s doing it alone, no one can follow him. We were just beaten by a better guy today.”
Although it wasn’t a victory in the end, Lidl-Trek’s gutsy performance was something that Pedersen was understandably proud of. He stressed that credit should be given to Stuyven who sacrificed his own chances of a result to help his team leader in the sprint finish for second place.
“To play with multiple cards in the final was really nice for us, of course it is hard that it happens on the day when he is in front, but what can we do? He’s riding away from us and we are trying everything to catch him but it’s just not possible today,” Pedersen said. “It’s really nice from Jasper to give up his own chances for going on the podium in a Monument to let me have a podium, it was really impressive.”
There’s also positives to be taken for Lidl-Trek when looking ahead to Paris-Roubaix next weekend. Although Pogačar will make an unprecedented appearance in the Hell of the North, the flat cobbles of Northern France aren’t well-suited to the UAE rider, something that could play into the hands of a rider like Pedersen.
“That’s a different race, you don’t have climbs and here it is easier for him to make a difference,” Pedersen said. “I have to watch out what I’m saying, maybe he can also do it on the flat cobbles, but let’s hope it’s just a little bit easier to follow him next week.”
Although he may not yet have figured out the answer to the seemingly almost impossible ask of getting his front wheel ahead of Tadej Pogačar in a Monument, Mads Pedersen is certainly not giving up. The painful, long and arduous quest for the top step of the podium continues in vein, but the Danish rider is, despite his difficulties, enjoying the process
“I’m proud of the race I did today – he’s just stronger than I am, there was a limit,” Pedersen explained. “I don’t know what to say, man, we are going all out with everything we have in the last 15 kilometres before he goes and even before. We are fighting ourselves to win the race but the way he is riding uphill is just incredible. It's insane.”
