Pedersen's time in pink comes to an end as the Giro hits its first mountain top finish
The first week of the Giro d’Italia could hardly have gone any better for Mads Pedersen and Lidl-Trek. Three stage wins, five days in pink, whilst the ciclamino jersey was waiting in the wings.
Earlier in the week, when praising his teammates’ heroic efforts to set him up for the win, Mads promised to return the favor, to both the universally-gifted Mathias Vacek, as well as to superstar climber Giulio Ciccone. Heading into Stage 7 Mads was under no illusions that he would not be in pink come the end of the stage, one of only two summit finishes of this Giro. Rather than fade away as the gradient pitched, Pedersen went out like a pink supernova, taking a huge pull on the front to position his teammates perfectly into the climb. With his work done, Mads could soak in his last moments in pink on the ascent to the finish, where he swapped the Maglia Rosa for the Maglia Ciclamino.
“We wanted to try to make a good result with Vacek today, he deserves it to try and get the pink jersey. With a really good result he would have been able to do that. In that moment when me and Daan Hoole were pulling the break still had three and a half minutes and we knew that with a fast downhill and a few turns together we would catch back a lot of time, and then the whole drag race started and other teams took over the work.
It’s been super nice, I’ve had nearly a week in the jersey and it’s something that I’ll remember. I’m super proud of all the wins and the win in the pink jersey, and all the teamwork. It’s been an incredible week for the team.”
