Hearing a rider with a palmarès like Mads Pedersen, whose 61 professional victories now include 12 Grand Tour stage wins, having to defend his competence is always a funny irony, but nonetheless one that showcases the swinging pendulum of professional sport.
"I heard [from] a lot of places that I was gone, and that I should just stop this season, that I will not win anything," he says, after winning a scorching stage four of the Tour de France to Foix. It's been ten months since the Danish rider has won a bike race – a drought for the former world champion – and five since a crash derailed his spring campaign. For Pedersen, and for Lidl-Trek, this one meant a lot.
"It's nice to show them that they are definitely wrong," he smiles.
In early February, he suffered fractures to his wrist and collarbone in his first race of the year at Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, and was back on the bike in time for Milan-Sanremo after just five weeks of rehab.
Top ten at E3, Tour of Flanders, and Paris-Roubaix – where he finished just 15 seconds behind winner Wout Van Aert – is hardly a poor string of results, but there was concern from worried fans, and from skeptics questioning the haste of his return. He spent almost exclusively training indoors, maintaining the same volume as initially planned for that training block. More recently, there were also questions about his decision to drop the Baloise Belgium Tour in his Tour de France prep.
The 30 year-old is frank, but unassuming: "It was a tough comeback, and we definitely pushed the limits to come back to the Classics. Was it smart? I don't know, but I wanted to win a Monument. I skipped Belgium to train a bit harder and do some motor pacing and train more in the heat. Some guys said it was stupid."
To make matters harder, Pedersen's early-season plight coincided with ongoing turbulence behind the scenes at Lidl-Trek. In June, the team announced that manager Luca Guercilena would hand over leadership following the conclusion of this year's Tour as part of wider ownership restructuring. As he sat before television cameras just moments after taking his first Tour de France win in three years beneath the Château de Foix, he dedicated the result to the man who made him.
"He was the guy who signed me in 2017. We didn't know if I actually had a contract for the 2016 year, and already back then he promised me if the team closed, I would get a contract with him. A few months later I signed the contract and since then I have been working with the trust he gave me," he explains. "The support he always gave me has been incredible, and it's nice to end this journey like this, to give him a victory. I promised him that before. That was a big promise, but it's nice, and it's a relief to give it to him. I'm really thankful for everything he has done for me."
It's a relief, too, for Lidl-Trek, who haven't had the best of seasons so far given Pedersen's injury, and Juan Ayuso's crash at Paris-Nice and illness at Itzulia Basque Country. Last year, an imperious Giro campaign by Pedersen added five Grand Tour stage wins to an overall tally of 33 victories for the team going into the Tour. This year, they had 19.
The essence of Pedersen's win today will also be a relief for a unit who have made headlines for back-office disarray. Quinn Simmons and Mathias Vacek controlled a huge breakaway of 34 riders in service of their leader, who surged from a reduced group of 10 with apparent ease to silence the critics with multiple bicycle lengths. Simmons followed in tow, celebrating the roar of his leader with an air-punch celebration of his own.
"I would say this was a masterpiece in teamwork," says Pedersen. "Maybe not climbing, I was suffering a lot on the last climb, but with Quinn and Vacek there it was a great day. They did incredible on the climbs to pace it well for me, and make sure we didn't lose too much time over the top. They were machines from there to the finish line. What a team effort and what a team win today."
With Mads Pedersen back in a Grand Tour points jersey, order feels at least semi-restored. Mads, it's good to have you back.
